# Hard Drive Question / Advice Needed **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 27, 2004, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-drive-question-advice-needed/276858 "2004-11-27T11:00:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![InvidiousCourgette](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e47c2d/32.png) [@InvidiousCourgette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InvidiousCourgette)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2004, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-drive-question-advice-needed/276858/1 "2004-11-27T11:00:02Z")
My Windows XP PC was going a bit slow this morning. The Hard Drive was chuntering away like nothing else, doing whatever it does. In fact it still is. Oh well, no big deal. However, 10 minutes ago I got a little yellow box at the bottom of the screen, saying something along the lines of “Warning, your C disc is getting low on space, click here … etc.”. Huh? So I fire up my copy of Treesize, check my C disc and sure enough it is down to its last 110 MB of 19077 MB. Err, make that 105 MB … 100 MB … 90 MB … 80 MB … Now I am very worried. Jump into Explorer/Trash Bin and delete some stuff, maybe 50 MB. I switch back to Treesize and the Free Space listed has jumped to 400 MB … 450 MB, still climbing (!!!). Anyway it is now steady as a rock at 1.5 GB free. The hard disc has stopped whirring. What happened? Should I worry about only (?) having 1.5GB free on my hard disc. Is this normal behaviour? Will it happen again? Thanks for any advice. ---
**Author:** ![Kymodoce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8797f3/32.png) [@Kymodoce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kymodoce)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2004, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-drive-question-advice-needed/276858/2 "2004-11-27T11:07:38Z")
Is automatic update on? Could it have been downloading and installing SP2? ---
**Author:** ![InvidiousCourgette](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e47c2d/32.png) [@InvidiousCourgette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InvidiousCourgette)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2004, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-drive-question-advice-needed/276858/3 "2004-11-27T11:16:59Z")
Yes I have Automatic update on, and it looks like I have Service Pack 2 to install. Wow, this better be good. Thanks for ID’ing my problem. ---
**Author:** ![InvidiousCourgette](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e47c2d/32.png) [@InvidiousCourgette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InvidiousCourgette)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2004, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-drive-question-advice-needed/276858/4 "2004-11-27T12:10:26Z")
Woo hoo! I have SP2 installed. I notice that the three little green boxes that go from left to right when you start your computer are now blue instead of green. Woo hoo! On the downside I notice my 1.5GB of free space is now 0.7GB. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2004, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-drive-question-advice-needed/276858/5 "2004-11-28T21:44:00Z")
Are you running NTFS? I can’t give a cite but IME NTFS has a tendency to fragment heavily when the disk gets nearly full. With 1.5 GB free, you might want to think about a little clean-up once you’re happy with SP2. If you’re using NTFS you can compress c:\Program Files and c:\Windows. You can consider deleting all the $NtUninstall… directories But a 20 GB disk is not large these days, so another option would be to go out and buy another HDD. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2004, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-drive-question-advice-needed/276858/6 "2004-11-28T21:57:59Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > If you’re using NTFS you can compress c:\Program Files and c:\Windows. :eek: Surely the worst choices for compress, given they’re constantly involved in Windows’ normal operating?! ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2004, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-drive-question-advice-needed/276858/7 "2004-11-29T20:07:35Z")
No, since you’re only reading from those directories, not writing. The time taken to decompress the files is miniscule compared to the time required to read the files off the disk. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2004, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-drive-question-advice-needed/276858/8 "2004-11-29T22:10:02Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > No, since you’re only reading from those directories, not writing. The time taken to decompress the files is miniscule compared to the time required to read the files off the disk. This is quite true for large files. You can read and decompress a large file in less time than it takes to just read the uncompressed original. But those directories typically contain a lot of small files. And there is likely to be no to negative advantage when it comes to small files. Look for directories that have huge, relatively unused, almost never changed files and compress those. Certain picture, sound and video formats. (Some are confusing: you can have compressed and uncompressed tiffs, ditto avis.)