Link: http://centrend.com/blogs/index.php/is-the-hard-disk-drive-too-full?blog=2

PC running slow? The hard drive on your PC contains files for the computer’s operating system, the applications and all the data that you save on it. It’s a physical disk with a certain amount of space allocated for writing your files. The size is measured in Gigabytes [e.g., 40GB, 80GB, 320GB]. When the disk becomes near full, the operating system will have to work harder, and processes slow down, as it tries to find free space to write new data. When the disk is completely full, the system will crash.

Periodically free up space on your hard drive by eliminating unused programs, unnecessary files and other extraneous data. It’s a good idea to keep the used space under 75% for optimal performance, and definitely take action if you have more than 90% used up. There are disk cleanup utilities available to help you do this, and you could also consider transferring some files to another drive, like an external USB storage device or another location on your network.

Things You Should Know - #100: To find out how much space you have left on your PC’s hard drive, go to “Computer". For Windows Vista and Windows 7, you can see the usage of the local disk from this screen.

If you are running Windows XP, you will go to “My Computer” from the Start Menu, then you need to make one more step … right-click on “Local Disk [C:]” selecting “Properties” from the drop-down choices, and you will see the usage there under the “General” tab.

Reaching drive capacity is just one of many possible reasons for PC slow-down, but it is always good practice to check disk usage once in a while. You’ll be surprised how much the disk can fill up over time.

- Bill

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Bill Bowman
Senior Technology Advisor
Centrend, Inc.
508-347-9550 x135