[ctviggen]

I had a work/home/home theater computer, and I looked at C drive to gauge what size of SSD to buy for a replacement computer (got tired of fans, so went fanless and made my old computer be a unraid server; I wanted no moving parts, although I did get a bluray drive).  My C drive, which stores only programs was over 60GB!  I thought that was a mistake, but just in case, I got a 128 GB SSD.  After a new installation, I'm already up to 38GB, and I don't have everything installed yet (no iTunes for example). 

Have I just been lulled to sleep by 1.5TB drives? 

[totoro]

This is true for Osx and ubuntu as well: basically, a 120-128 g ssd is great as a system drive, but you will want something else to store data. Really large ssds are still expensive, so it's kind of cost-prohibitive to go all-ssd.

[mgalusha]

Win 7 and Vista and I think XP have a directory called winsxs and it's a massive space hog. On this machine (win 7 x64) this is currently 6.9GB and I've seen them up to 10. This holds the "side by side" assemblies to prevent dll conflicts but the cost in disk space is high. Running the disk cleanup utility and using the clean system files option can help. This laptop has a 128g SSD and at the moment my windows directory is just a shade over 18gb and the program files about 5.3gb. Another 5 or so for user data (Chrome is sucking up ~7000mb, presumably for cache) and it all ads up quick.

If you want a painless tool to find out where the greed lies, I suggest Treesize Free from JAM software. They offer more full featured versions but the free one will tell you plenty.

[Elizabeth]

The SSD should be for the main program, and all your 'stuff' should still be an a spinner.
Most new high end laptops are coming with a 128SSd and a one T or 500G normal drive.

[Mike Nomad]

Storage has gotten cheaper, end-user expectations continue to go up, and OS have become more sophisticated. Default installs include some excessive combination of mulch-language files, printer drivers, and extra OS files to aid in a snappier restore. The increase in OS sophistication means (by default) more logging.

And if you use restore point functions...

[ctviggen]

If you want a painless tool to find out where the greed lies, I suggest Treesize Free from JAM software. They offer more full featured versions but the free one will tell you plenty.

Thanks!  I was looking for something like that.

[ctviggen]

The SSD should be for the main program, and all your 'stuff' should still be an a spinner.
Most new high end laptops are coming with a 128SSd and a one T or 500G normal drive.

Well, I built a computer with no moving parts (that's right -- no fan). I did install a bluray drive, but it's silent if not being used.  I didn't want a hard drive, as they're loud.  I also have an "unraid" server, which has 4 terabytes of storage.  So, my plan was to allow this computer to temporarily record TV and the like, but then copy the data to the server. 

It used to be when I walked into my family room, I would hear nothing but fan noise. Now, I hear nothing. I mean nothing.  I'm trying to figure out how to get my 3TB drive into the same room as the server, as when the drive spins up, it's loud (now that the computer is silent).