Reducing system disk space usage on computer with SQL Server

Question

The disk usage on my computer continues to rising with time. How can reduce his size without damaging programs and windows. The disk is SSD with 180 GB, because of that this is sensitive to me !

Biggest folders:

Program Files (x86) -52.6 GB
Windows - 37.3 GB

At the begging the Windows folder was 50 GB. I run Disk CleanUp and CCleaner, also I turned off Hibernate and System protection. I cleared Installer/$patchcache$ folder. The other big folder is winsxs, for which I know that this is bug of explorer.

Can I do something else for Windows folder ?

About Program files folder. I have Microsoft SQL Ser/.../.../AppState20_log 32.7 GB file. From my knowledge there is no problems in clearing any logs, but this is sensitive for my work because I'm using SQL server everyday. My questions:

Can I clear this log file ?

How to clear AppState20_log file ?

I made google effort, but nothing was found.

Answer 1

1. Don't touch manually any of SQL Server log files! These files are not "logs" for user, these are transaction logs required by SQL Server. They contain data. However - you can reduce MS-SQL log file size by reconfiguring database.

   Manage the Size of the Transaction Log File (at msdn.microsoft.com)

   You can also reduce database file size:

   Shrink a Database (at msdn.microsoft.com)

2. You can use Disk Cleanup tool in Windows 7.

   Disk Cleanup tool will make more space if you have Windows Update package which adds feature that cleans Windows Update backup files (makes Windows\WinSXS folder significatnly smaller).

   More information and step by step guide: Breaking News! Reduce the size of the WinSxS Directory and Free up Disk Space with a New Update for Windows 7 SP1 Clients (at technet.microsoft.com)

3. You can disable or reconfigure System Protection to use less space, but you will be not able to use it if you turn it off.

   What is system protection? (at windows.microsoft.com)

4. Disable hibernation if you are not using it

   How to really turn off hibernation in Windows 7 (at superuser.com)

5. Reduce size of PageFile or put it another disk. Page file is virtual memory that is used when you computer runs out of physical memory (RAM). Virtual memory will be slower if you move it from SSD to HDD, but... I think slow virtual memory is better than SSD dead after 1 year because SSD have limited write operations, and virtual memory writes a lot if you run out of physical memory.

   Change the size of virtual memory (at windows.microsoft.com)

6. Move Documents, Images, Videos, Downloads, Desktop directories locations to another drive (if they are big). Open Documents or other "special user folder" Properties. Go to Location tab and use "Move" button to move these folders to another disk.

   There is a way to move whole user profile to another disk, but I would not recommend that for system which is not "fresh" and there are many programs installed.

   

7. Reduce browser cache size. There are many browsers, I will not explain how to do it in all of them. I guess you can find some tips in browser help or in Google.

8. You can move your database (or just transaction logs) to another drive, but SQL Server will be slower. If you are working with databases a lot, run big queries, write and read a lot of data - I would not recommend that. However you can do it if your database doesn't really have to be fast.

   Move User Databases (at msdn.microsoft.com)

9. If you can reinstall Windows - you can shrink Windows installation with NTLite tool. For example - you can reduce initial size of Windows/WinSXS, remove some languages, remove speech recognition and many other features.