Coming into this thread, I figured this difference would be double digit GB at best and a lot of things that you don't need to fuss over could explain a difference like that, but well over half a TB is something else and would warrant investigation.

I would use software like WizTree, WinDirStat, Tree Size or similar to check the drive when it is showing a lot of unaccounted for space to see what is claiming it.

Originally posted by Illusion of Progress:

Coming into this thread, I figured this difference would be double digit GB at best and a lot of things that you don't need to fuss over could explain a difference like that, but well over half a TB is something else and would warrant investigation.

I would use software like WizTree, WinDirStat, Tree Size or similar to check the drive when it is showing a lot of unaccounted for space to see what is claiming it.

Yeah, I wouldn't care so much about double-digit GB. It's that half a TB that's frustrating. I do have a gaming YT channel, and trying to plan games for the channel vs what I want to play for relaxation gets difficult when I have no idea if I can trust my storage capacity.

Are you recording your game play

Originally posted by smallcat:

Are you recording your game play

I have a separate 8TB HDD for all my video files, but the recording software is on the 2TB SSD. I've had this setup for about three years now, but only in the past month or so have I noticed this issue with the storage capacity on the SSD.

And it's just happened again. Last night, I had only 279GB of unused storage on my main SSD. Today, I supposedly have 1.19TB free on that same exact drive.

Why? Why does this keep happening? It's really screwing with my gaming plans.

Just a cursory read of this thread I'd likely point toward you have your recording software installed on the drive in question and it's using that disk as it's scratch space during recording and once you've finished recording and it's saved to your other disk the temporary scratch space is periodically being purged freeing up a large amount of space on that disk.

EDIT: What software are you using to record?

there is obviously some temporary files that gets saved on that SSD. only solution is to find a way to put your temporary files on the other drive.

Originally posted by andreasaspenberg575:

there is obviously some temporary files that gets saved on that SSD. only solution is to find a way to put your temporary files on the other drive.

Yes, as I mentioned this is likely their recording software. Depending on what they are using to record and/or their recording workflow this is very likely their issue.

I'm guessing they are using either Nvidia Shadowplay or something like Camtasia to record; or they are using OBS where it is default recording to their users Video folder and then they are manually moving the file to their other disk after finishing recording which will take a bit for the system to run garbage collection on the SSD and actually show the space as "free" again.

If they are using Shadowplay it will by default use an AppData\Local\Temp directory as it's scratch disk/cache during recording. Camtasia will also do similar and by default will use a folder where it is installed to for it's scratch disk/cache and then will save out to the output file path after recording finishes.

All of those will result in the SSD showing a large amount of used space (e.g. whatever the size of the recording was) until the periodic clean up marks that space as available again.

Depending on the software the OP could install a separate dedicated SSD to be used as a scratch disk while recording and editing videos that isn't the same as their primary SSD.

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

Originally posted by andreasaspenberg575:

there is obviously some temporary files that gets saved on that SSD. only solution is to find a way to put your temporary files on the other drive.

Yes, as I mentioned this is likely their recording software. Depending on what they are using to record and/or their recording workflow this is very likely their issue.

I'm guessing they are using either Nvidia Shadowplay or something like Camtasia to record; or they are using OBS where it is default recording to their users Video folder and then they are manually moving the file to their other disk after finishing recording which will take a bit for the system to run garbage collection on the SSD and actually show the space as "free" again.

If they are using Shadowplay it will by default use an AppData\Local\Temp directory as it's scratch disk/cache during recording. Camtasia will also do similar and by default will use a folder where it is installed to for it's scratch disk/cache and then will save out to the output file path after recording finishes.

All of those will result in the SSD showing a large amount of used space (e.g. whatever the size of the recording was) until the periodic clean up marks that space as available again.

Depending on the software the OP could install a separate dedicated SSD to be used as a scratch disk while recording and editing videos that isn't the same as their primary SSD.

I use OBS for recording, but I don't think it would be enough to create that massive storage use issue. I have the recording save pathways set to the HDD for both the RAW files and the remuxxed versions. File sizes are usually under 50GB, so I'd expect maybe 100GB-200GB disappearing and reappearing at random, not nearly a full TB. (BTW, this new switch-up happened after I had done two hours of recording and had not dumped my temporary files before checking my drives. Your theory would suggest that I should have seen a loss in storage today, not a massive gain.)

Honestly, I don't know. The only thing I can think is maybe I should do a deep-clean on the hardware again if there's no software-related diagnosis.

As I mentioned, use software which shows you the file makeup of a drive when the space is low and it will remove the guess work.

If you have recording software, and use it, I would have that on the list of potential causes.

windirstat. works.
formatting and redownloading. works too.
i did a whole reinstall.

Using zfs?

Or Windows 11 buginess?

win 11 pro. i think i had a bad iso. i was the first.

Originally posted by Illusion of Progress:

As I mentioned, use software which shows you the file makeup of a drive when the space is low and it will remove the guess work.

If you have recording software, and use it, I would have that on the list of potential causes.

^ concur. Like you said WizTree, WinDirStat, Tree Size or the like will help track down what specifically is using the space.

The guess regarding the recording software is largely because that is a significant likelihood given how most recording software works and the nature of very large file sizes for video recordings. Another potential culprit would be a Windows managed swap space on that drive depending on how much memory they have; Windows may be reserving a significant amount of space when there is a high memory commit (even if the memory is not currently used); however, given the amount of disk space they are talking about this would be far lower on my suspect list than the recording softwares caching/scratch space; but could be a potential culprit in tandem with the latter.

Either way, using a tool that will actually index and tally up the filesystem to show you the specific sizes of directories and their contents should allow the OP to very easily track down what is using the space

Originally posted by PaleoGhost:

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

Yes, as I mentioned this is likely their recording software. Depending on what they are using to record and/or their recording workflow this is very likely their issue.

I'm guessing they are using either Nvidia Shadowplay or something like Camtasia to record; or they are using OBS where it is default recording to their users Video folder and then they are manually moving the file to their other disk after finishing recording which will take a bit for the system to run garbage collection on the SSD and actually show the space as "free" again.

If they are using Shadowplay it will by default use an AppData\Local\Temp directory as it's scratch disk/cache during recording. Camtasia will also do similar and by default will use a folder where it is installed to for it's scratch disk/cache and then will save out to the output file path after recording finishes.

All of those will result in the SSD showing a large amount of used space (e.g. whatever the size of the recording was) until the periodic clean up marks that space as available again.

Depending on the software the OP could install a separate dedicated SSD to be used as a scratch disk while recording and editing videos that isn't the same as their primary SSD.

I use OBS for recording, but I don't think it would be enough to create that massive storage use issue. I have the recording save pathways set to the HDD for both the RAW files and the remuxxed versions. File sizes are usually under 50GB, so I'd expect maybe 100GB-200GB disappearing and reappearing at random, not nearly a full TB. (BTW, this new switch-up happened after I had done two hours of recording and had not dumped my temporary files before checking my drives. Your theory would suggest that I should have seen a loss in storage today, not a massive gain.)

Honestly, I don't know. The only thing I can think is maybe I should do a deep-clean on the hardware again if there's no software-related diagnosis.

You really do want to start with using Windirstat or something like that because it's made for exactly what you're going through. It's supposed to show you where all your space is being used so you can deal with it.