Modern laptops are amazing things, with ultra-slim designs, bright screens and powerful processors. Storage, however, tends to be a sticking point. To keep the price down, entry-level computers often have a small SSD with a capacity of only 256GB or even 128GB, much of which is instantly eaten up by the operating system and core applications.
That’s fine if you just want to browse the web and edit the odd Word document, but when it comes to playing games, editing movies or otherwise taking advantage of your PC’s potential, space can quickly become tight. Here’s our advice on stretching your storage to get the best from your computer.
Use the built-in clean-up tool
Let’s start with a simple tool that’s been built into every release of Microsoft’s OS since Windows 98. To open it, hit the Windows key and enter “Disk Clean-up”; a window will open detailing various categories of file, with an estimate of how much space each type is taking up. All of these can be safely deleted by ticking their boxes and hitting the OK button at the bottom of the window.
Hit the “Clean up system files” button at the bottom of the window and some additional categories will appear, including files left over from upgrading and updating Windows. These can be quite substantial – on my personal laptop those categories weighed in at 4.56GB and 2.48GB respectively, which is an amount of space that’s well worth reclaiming. After deleting these you won’t be able to remove the updates or roll back to an earlier version of Windows, but when did you last do that anyway?
Track down outsized files and folders
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der December 2022-Ausgabe von PC Pro.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der December 2022-Ausgabe von PC Pro.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
Is it time to upgrade your business Wi-Fi?
Do you need to invest in a faster, more reliable wireless network? Steve Cassidy asks the key questions
On-premises business backup
Put your data at risk and you're putting your business at risk. Dave Mitchell explains how to put safeguards in place and what backup products can help
Claude 3.5 Sonnet
An excellent AI model for a wide variety of tasks: it's fast, versatile and the current leader for coding
SMART SPEAKERS
Whether your priority is audio quality, smart home control or always-on AI assistance, this group test holds the answer
Udio
A stunningly sophisticated service for creating just about any form of audio artistry from a text prompt
Runway
A powerful tool for video creators, but you'll need to invest time and money to take advantage
Nothing Phone (2a) Plus
A distinctive phone for those who want great battery life and a stunning screen without paying a fortune
CUKTECH 20
Good battery life, sleek design and a built-in display lift this power bank from the crowd
Sony Xperia 1 VI
A microSD card slot and 3.5mm jack mark this flagship out, but the price is too high
ReMarkable Paper Pro
Still troubled by lag, but this is a premium ePaper tablet that benefits from both a backlight and colours