When I first started it up it was 170gb is there anyway to get it to at least 200? And what can I get rid of on an HP laptop that won’t screw it up?
You can get a terabyte SSD for like $50 these days. It might be worth it to just upgrade.
I bought an HP Laptop with 8gb of Ram...and was suppose to be 256gb SSD. I downloaded one game and its all the way down to 80. Is there any free software to download to help?
Submitted 6 days ago by Patnou@lemmy.world to [deleted]
Comments
ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Blackmist@feddit.uk 5 days ago
Providing it’s not soldered to the motherboard like Apple does with no way to add more.
frayedpickles@lemmy.cafe 5 days ago
Tbh I thought this was a shitpost trying to get people to Linux
Patnou@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Nope so far I got it up to 170 gb with revo unistaller It just kind of makes me think I would have an air tight case for false advertising.
teije9@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 days ago
hp is notorious for pre installing apps that you dont need, it’s called bloatware. you can maybe remove some of those.
anothermember@lemmy.zip 5 days ago
Golden rule is to never use a computer with the OS that was preloaded. You’ll never know what they put in there.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Look up WizTree for a quick way to see/fix what’s taking up your space.
frayedpickles@lemmy.cafe 5 days ago
Windirstat
gratux@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 days ago
WizTree seems to be quite a bit faster, with almost identical look&feel
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Windirstat is way, way, way slower. WizTree scans my entire drive in literal seconds.
dan1101@lemm.ee 5 days ago
This is the answer, you can actually visually see what’s taking the storage space.
Carnelian@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Probably just a lot of bloatware. When I’ve been in this situation in the past, I did a completely fresh install of windows. Much smaller. Linux can free up even more space.
There really isn’t anything necessary from HP, but it also depends a lot on your comfort working with the computer so ymmv. I don’t know what’s gonna happen if 3 months down the line you need to call customer support for something. If it were me, I’d be thinking “worst case scenario I can just factory reset”, especially if I had everything important backed up somewhere.
adarza@lemmy.ca 6 days ago
so long as it’s under warranty. yea. make sure you have a way to actually do the ‘factory reset’.
if you nix the partitions during a ‘clean install’ of windows or of linux, you won’t.
unless you’ve made a backup image of the hdd to an external (using reflect or similar), or in hp’s case–download their recovery media creator (runs on windows only but doesn’t have to be the target system) and build a recovery flash drive for your model.
BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world 5 days ago
The hard drive may be 256gb but a big chunk of that is taken up by Windows and also there will be a hidden recovery partition. So 170gb sounds about right.
If you download a big game, then it’s not a big deal if you’re using that game. 90gb is still plenty.
There may be programs HP have installed that you can remove in add/remove software to make a bit more space.
256gb isn’t much but it’s enough unless you want multiple big games installed or have a big library of data such as movies or pictures.
Also it may be possible to upgrade the hard drive - depends on the model and how accessible the hard drive is. If you can access the hard drive to replace it then you could get a 1tb drive for example. There are guides online but basically you’d need to copy the existing drive to the new drive (would need a USB adaptor to mount the new drive first) and then swap the drives round. It very much depends on the laptop though.
Another option is an external hard drive connected via USB - it’s not good for gaming or running big programmes but it is fine for storing movies and pictures.
Rentlar@lemmy.ca 5 days ago
Clean install without the HP bloat, backup the important stuff elsewhere first.
Another thing: Are you subscribed to a bajillion mods? That is the case for me. My CoD Black Ops 3 is 30GB, with DLC is 90GB, after Steam workshop mods is 377 GB.
Patnou@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I never download mods. I make a point of it. If a game is released and stands on it own I may think about it but thats it.
manicdave@feddit.uk 5 days ago
A very silly but useful hack I did to get the MS flight sim install down to about 40GB (normally ~270GB) before I gave up on windows was this.
Set up a nextcloud server on a raspberry pi.
Install the client on your windows machine.
Add your games install folder as a connection on the nextcloud client and enable VFS (virtual filesystem)
Once synced, right click the folder and select “free up space…”
This will basically delete the file data from your local machine and redownload it whenever windows tries to access a file.
Now launch your game and it’ll take a while to start as it has to redownload the files it actually needs to run, but it won’t bother getting it doesn’t have to.
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 5 days ago
You obviously need to download more RAM.
vk6flab@lemmy.radio 6 days ago
Why do you need "to get it to at least 200”?
castlebravo404@lemmynsfw.com 5 days ago
Yeah, that’s like 80% free. Windows itself is bloated and if you add a couple modern games on top of that… Good luck.
michael_palmer@lemmy.sdf.org 5 days ago
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 days ago
wipe everything- HP is the worst possible company for preinstalled data mining bloatware. reinstall Tiny11 to further reduce Microsoft’s bloat. Then consider getting a 1tb portable SSD, most of them are plenty fast enough to support having games installed.
tjoa@feddit.org 5 days ago
“Fast enough to having games installed” haha this reminds me of when I started gaming again after years, I saw games are now like 150gb so I considered it bulk data and put it on my HDDs 😬 but yea the stuff also needs to be loaded at some point
Ashiette@lemmy.world 5 days ago
If you downloaded the game illegally then installed it on your hard drive then… You have your answer.
You might still have the downloaded game and you have the installed game. Depending on the fiability of your download source there might also be temporary install file, somewhere.
teft@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Could be on there up to three times. Once as the downloaded archive, once as the expanded archive, and once as the installed game.
recreationalcatheter@lemm.ee 5 days ago
Try a Linux install of something lightweight like mint/xfce to eliminate OS bloat.
Steam has a built in compatibility layer you can manage from your library page, so if your laptop could run a game on windows it should easily run it on mint with the spared resources and you’ll have all that spare space from ditching windows crap.
BoxOfFeet@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Guy is asking if he can download free software to get more ssd space. And while TECHNICALLY Linux does fit the bill for this (and is awesome), I’m willing to wager OP does not have the technical skill set for it at this time.
teije9@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 days ago
installing and using mint is waaayyy easier than reformatting a drive and installing and debloating windows
chunkystyles@sopuli.xyz 5 days ago
It’s funny the biases that crop up in these threads. Another poster says to format the drive and reinstall windows with de-bloating software and that gets upvoted while probably being a more complex process than installing Linux.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 5 days ago
suppose
supposed
its
it’s
170gb[.] [I]s there anyway
any way
I recommend swapping in a new SSD . Use something like clonezilla to mirror the SSD from the old one to the new.
Also see whether you can bump the RAM in that box: laptops often have a LOT of junk that starts on boot that just seems to eat RAM, not the least of which is Windows itself. Adding RAM will have the most immediate effect once you’ve found the space to install things.
T00l_shed@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Chances are good you could get a new larger ssd installed, right off the bat you won’t get the full amount of storage advertised, windows 11 takes up around 18 gb. I don’t know how much junk HP loads however. 250gb doesn’t really give much room anymore, unless it’s for productivity.
teije9@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 days ago
linux
adarza@lemmy.ca 6 days ago
i have a new hp laptop here with same specs (r3,17in,8gb,250ssd). cleaned-up and updated, with firefox, the user’s av, and a couple smaller programs, but no crud from being ‘used’ yet. ~ 172gb free.
your goal of 200gb free with hp’s factory load is not going to happen. you will have to reinstall from a plain win11 installer usb made from microsoft’s utility.
then after you’re installed, put windows into compact state:
compact /compactos:always
instructions herebefore you begin, i would highly recommend finding ‘hp cloud recovery tool’ from the windows ‘store’. install that, run it off the start menu (find it, right click, run-as-admin), and make a factory recovery usb for your model (the model number is on the bottom of the unit, usually, looks something like “63U47UA#ABA”). so you’ll need two empty flash drives. the hp recovery requires 32gb one. the windows installer one can be as small as 8gb i think.
all that, and you’ll probably still be a little short of your goal–and that’s without updates, junk added while used, and anything you may want to put on. and also remember ssd drives function best when they aren’t jam-packed with data. so you really should be considering an upgrade for the nvme ssd inside the laptop.
Blaster_M@lemmy.world 6 days ago
1: hp laptops are easy to work on - one back panel and everything is accessible. Some screws are under the rubber feet 2: m.2 ssd, most likely a 2280 nvme, which is almost all of them. Open the laptop and measure the length of the ssd to confirm. They come in 80, 40, and 30mm lengths. Get a 1TB minimum. 3: Upgrade that 8gb ram to 32gb (2x16gb). Assuming this is a clearance laptop with ddr4, that 8gb it has now is not enough for Win11 and daily use - Windows takes up to 5GB on its own, the remaining 3 will be eaten by a browser tab in chrome or firefox. 4: look up your hp model on their website and get the service manual. It shows you how to rebuild the laptop from the frame up. 5: While you’re there, look at the specs - what kind of ram, how much it accepts, and what ssd it has.
Nollij@sopuli.xyz 5 days ago
You can’t broadly say that for a brand, especially one as diverse as HP. Some are very easy, mostly the enterprise models. Many are borderline impossible. Without knowing the model, it’s impossible to say. It could require removing the motherboard, or special tools to open the case.
Siegfried@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Cant you upgrade the laptop? Would you share the model?
Kaiyoto@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Just adding for op that crucial has some drives on sale right now.
BoxOfFeet@lemmy.world 5 days ago
I’m concerned about OP’s ability to upgrade a drive based on the nature of the question. I’d like to also throw in some help with cloning a drive.
Bezier@suppo.fi 6 days ago
Ram and (ssd) storage are two different things. Also, both of those numbers, 8 gb of ram and 256 gb of disk space, are pretty low these days.
Anyway, if you’re using the laptop with the software it came with, it might have a bunch of demo versions of useless apps put on for advertisement purposes. HP is (or at least used to be) notorious for this crap. Somewhere in the settings should be a page for apps that lists what’s installed, check there.
AlphaOmega@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Yeah that’s your best bet, remove all the bloatware and regain 20 GB+
cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 5 days ago
256 is absolutely fine unless you work with video editing or games. If you’re just growing the net it’ll last you forever.