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Should I now delete backup files already stored on my SSD C Drive? Should I use free space on SSD C Drive?
On both my desktop and laptop, my Windows 11 C drives are on a 500 GB SSD. My D drives are on a 1 TB HDD.
Desktop
A Microsoft Support Engineer noticed that I backed up 300 GB of family videos on my C drive. Windows 11 consumes 200 GB. Thus my Desktop SSD has 100 idle GB. She DISadvised adding these family videos to the C drive, which allegedly will lower the SSD's lifespan and slow Windows. Finally, she advised deleting these family videos. Alas, I couldn't understand her explanation because she spoke English with a NONstandard accent.
As these 300 GB are already stored on my SSD, should I now delete these 300 GB? Or should I let sleeping dogs lie?
Laptop
Again, Windows consumes 200 GB. I feel like I'm overlooking or squandering the spare 300 GB. Should I use this 300 GB by backing up files?
1 answer
The following users marked this post as Works for me:
| User | Comment | Date |
|---|---|---|
| TextKit | (no comment) | Jun 24, 2022 at 02:29 |
Generally, PC these days are almost always built with 2 hard drives: one for the OS and related programs, one for applications and user data.
There is nothing directly harmful with storing a lot of user data on the C:\ drive, obviously it can be used to store files just fine.
But what will happen when the drive gets filled up, is that the file system gets more and more fragmented. This in turn makes file access slower. Windows can solve this by defragmentating the hard disk (moving fragments of the same file closer together), but that comes at the expensive of write cycles. Since SSD is based on flash memories, writes will eventually wear out the memory and indeed shorted the lifespan, so unnecessary writes should be avoided.
So yes, the support person you spoke with was correct and you should ideally look to move these files elsewhere. If it's a backup of data already stored at D:\ then consider getting an external USB hard drive for backups.
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