Advantages to having lots of free space on hard drives?

[froggyboy604]

Would I be wasting my money if I buy a 2000 GB/2TB drive just to install Windows, and not use the space for anything else except for installing a Firefox, Chrome, Microsoft Office, and Gimp image editor?

A lot of computer users say that you need at least 20% or more free space for Windows to defrag properly. But, if I have 1000+ GB or 80-90% free space or more of free unused space would there be any noticeable performance increase, any other advantages, or no advantages?

Some of the less ethical disk clean up programs also advertise very big performance increase after doing a disk clean up which sound kind of false in most cases if you already have a lot of free space in the Terabyte size.

The only advantage I can think of is ripping computer game disc, DVD movies, and Blu-Ray disc to ISO to run from your hard drive instead of your CD, DVD, or Blu-ray drive which is slower.

 

[Deleted member 1609]

I don't think that there would be any noticeable performance increase from that much free space.

 

[NBK*Twitch]

The answer is simple, you won't have too defragment to often,but maybe once a month.

Fragmentation is caused by moving and deleting files. So the last of that you do the less fragmented your machine will be.

However other things that could have an effect on fragmentation is what filesystem you use,do you try software out alot, and what amount of space you have.

 

[froggyboy604]

The answer is simple, you won't have top fragment to often,but maybe once a month.

Fragmentation is caused by moving and deleting files. So the last of that you do the less fragmented your machine will be.

However other things that could have an effect on fragmentation is what filesystem you use,do you try software out alot, and what amount of space you have.

I use Diskeeper 2010 which automatically defrag my hard drive when my computer is not doing much, so I don't really experience fragmentation. I use NTFS for Windows 7.

I rarely try out new software except for updated versions of software I already have installed like Google Chrome, Firefox, and MS Office since they update automatically in most cases.

I just read a few software descriptions for disk clean up utilities, and computer help blogs for newbies and computer users which make Disk clean up software sound like the best way to increase performance for free, or a very low price, and I wonder if it is true for all cases including for people with 50% or more free space on Windows NTFS drive.

Would my money be better spent on buying more RAM, a faster video card, and CPU then 20-30 dollar disk clean up software?

I used the same computer with 20% free space and 70+% free space in Windows, and both have low disk fragmentation according to the defrag analyze report and don't notice a real difference in speed.

Some people on Yahoo Answer claim that if your files on a secondary drive which does not have Windows installed on it, you'll experience no performance boost by having a empty secondary drive or partition.

 

[NBK*Twitch]

A disk cleanup program will not help speed to much.

Your best bet would be buying some more RAM.

 

[froggyboy604]

Thanks, I buy more RAM, or save more money to buy a Windows 8 computer when Windows 8 is released since I read Windows 8 will support 8 second or faster boots for most computers with UEFI optimize boot.

 

[Ryanplex]

Technically it would run better with more free space however the gain would be soooooo tiny that it wouldnt even be worth it.

 

[alfred01]

I don't think that there would be any noticeable performance increase from that much free space.

First off, let me say that I am no technical wizard with computer's, more like the village idiot but I do have to agree here with SnoBOO and Ryanplex, if more empty storage space makes your computer run any faster, it would be so infinitesimal that I doubt you would ever notice it. 🙂