System Volume Information taking up nearly 200GB

Hmm, I would have thought that after you have reduced System Restore to 2-5GB, and if you created a new restore point,

it would have wiped the old System Restore data from the System Volume Information folder. Wrong assumption I guess.

Anyway, I had a quick look at the article Summit linked to. It looks pretty thorough, and should see you through.

btw - Curious... How did you get Tree Size to show the System Volume Information data ? Did you take ownership of the folder ?

( I did take ownership of the Windows Apps folder a while back, but have no intention of taking ownership of this folder)

My Tree Size scan shows 0 (as does the actual SVI folder). It is aggravating not being able to at least see how much space folder x,y or z occupy.

.

Just disable System Restore and reboot. This should delete all restore points.

Then setup System Restore to allow between 2-5GB . This should  cover most short term issues that

System Restore is handy for (botched user changes, recent software installs, or similar system changes).

Too large a System Restore tends to add to problems as it will uninstall recently installed programs\games, updates and user tweaks.

Best to just have a couple of restore points that cover a week or two, and keep doing as you are with a backup of

your main system on an external drive (internal is not without risk).

*drifts off topic....

• I reckon the best way to manage games is to never install to the default location - Program Files (X86)

or anywhere else in C:\ . This allows you to keep C:\ size to a minimum, which helps make for quicker system images\clones.

Since the advent of SSD's I've been using a 120GB SSD for Windows, personal data such as music, etc. Lightweight programs

(excluding things that are closely associated with the OS such as Firefox, security software, keyboard\controller profiling programs etc),

are all on another small Partition on the SSD as well.

All games are on separate drives, but a partition on the same drive as C:\ is good too as you don't have to image\clone that partition.

• Personally... I see to many suggestions to 'take ownership' of this, that and the other thing. Logging on with an Admin account

should give enough permissions to do whatever any User needs in most instances.

Note, that when it comes to the dread Windows Apps folder (which does not have to be installed in C:\ either),

all giving yourself permissions is good for is to be able to see how much drive space the games are using

(you still cannot do anything with the game files), but this anti-PC gamer nonsense can be avoided by not buying

games from the Windows Store. AKA... GFWL mk2.

.

Hi,

I am Sumit, an Independent Advisor here to assist you.

Not a good idea directly to delete by taking ownership. Have you run disk cleanup or Storage sense?

To gain space, follow the steps here:

First of all, eliminate all useless files on C:/ by using Disk Cleanup.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3012-open-u...

Make sure you have checked System files option after the first scan.

Content on the above blog is written by a Microsoft MVP so it is safe. However, do watch out for the ads.

Disk cleanup got me all of 2 GB back. It's the whole 173GB System Restore file under system volume information that i've been unable to get down to a reasonable size.

Okay good to know. Thanks for all the info.

That's a fantastic idea for keeping my C:\ size to a minimum but a big problem there unfortunately is I have a pretty massive amount of games from Xbox Game Pass for PC which also saves in Windows Apps and has it's own big set of problems and bugs. 

Thanks with the help on minimizing that system restore size though.

Hi,

I am Sumit, an Independent Advisor here to assist you.

Not a good idea directly to delete by taking ownership. Have you run disk cleanup or Storage sense?

To gain space, follow the steps here:

First of all, eliminate all useless files on C:/ by using Disk Cleanup.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3012-open-u...

Make sure you have checked System files option after the first scan.

Content on the above blog is written by a Microsoft MVP so it is safe. However, do watch out for the ads.