The SSD drives are on rise, but there is one negative effect of the enormous amount of speed increase it brings – lower overall space (at least in comparison with traditional HDD).
Instead of classic ways of increasing free disk space – uninstalling unused applications and games – I will focus on some additional tips mostly targeted for enterprise machines running Windows OS.

 

1) CCM cache files

  • These files can take even tens of gigabytes of space, as these hold all cached applications and updates that arrived to the machine from Software center client.
  1. Click the “Start” button and open Control Panel.
  2. Scroll to and open “Configuration Manager”. Press the “Advanced” tab.
  3. Change the location of future cached files, if needed, by clicking the “Change Location” button and choosing a new location on your hard drive. The default location is “%windir%\system32\CCM\Cache.”
  4. Delete all cached files in CCM by clicking the “Delete Files” button. Press “Yes” if asked to confirm.
  5. Click “OK” to save your changes, and exit the Advanced window.

2) Large files in C:\temp folder and subfolders

3) Analyze the drive

  • You can check what files/folders are taking most filespace on HDD via e.g. TreeSize application and determine which could be removed (usually some temporary files, .pst files and so on).

 

TreeSize Free by JAM Software

 

4) Windows Update Service (WUS) cache files

  1. Go to services.msc (Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative tools -> Services)
  2. Find and stop Windows Update service, also make sure that Windows Modules Installer service is stopped
  3. Then go to C:\Windows and delete folder SoftwareDistribution or rename it to SoftwareDistribution.old
  4. Delete all cab_xxx files from C:\Windows\Temp
  5. Delete all files in C:\Windows\Logs\CBS
  6. Start Windows Update service back. SoftwareDistribution folder will be created automatically​ again.