- A directory called BackupToDiskTest which I'd used to test a backup product in 2005 (12GB of unwanted data).
- A large number of ISO files for software installation, which I moved to an archive directory on the main server.
- 2.7GB of home movie AVI files, subsequently moved to the main server.
Obviously I've been lazy in dumping everything into my own directory including data which I don't need offline. Now I didn't delete all of these files, however I did save space on my laptop drive, which is pretty limited at just over 103GB.
Rescanning the C:\ drive, I now found "System Volume Information". This is an area of disk used by Windows to store recovery information in the event that you need to restore your laptop to a previous known "good configuration". In my case, Windows was using 12.6GB of storage to retain my previous configuration details. Now, touch wood, I've never bothered to use the restore feature of Windows. I keep my machines pretty tidy and don't install a lot of test or junk software. The last restore point appeared to have been created by my virus scanner so I felt confident to delete the restore information. I did this by simply unchecking, applying and rechecking the drive letter in Control Panel -> System -> System Protection.
I also found a few other bits and pieces - some content in BBC iPlayer that had expired and could be deleted; 3.5GB of temp files in my local profile; another 5GB of home movie WMVs on my L: drive which I moved to the server.
So at the end of pass #1, things stand as follows;
Laptop C:\ Drive - capacity 103GB - allocated reduced from 75.4GB to 63.8GB (15%)
Laptop L:\ Drive - capacity 38.7GB - allocated reduced from 34.85GB to 24.1GB (31%)
I'm pleased with the savings, however there's a lot more to do. Each cleanup highlights new issues and I don't believe the Offline Files has reclaimed all of the files I moved. In money terms, the recovered space doesn't equate to anything of value, however it does mean as I move to consider online backups that I have only the relevant data being backed up - and that does translate into money.
2 comments:
That's a lot of work for incremental storage (and data) efficiency. That time is better spent on other things. Data management and search tools have gotten good enough to overcome most of the downside of keeping a lot of data.
Pete
It certainly is a lot of work; I've many years of simply moving data from one medium to another and its time to sort it out. Yes, the work will be disproportional, however the end game is to prove that processes can be applied and on a home environment, the savings will be small, on a large NAS environment hopefully they will be much more!
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