It is common for a computer to decline in speed or performance thereby frustrating the user. According to Samson Sewanyana, an IT specialist, once your computer gets low on hard disk space, normal processes begin to slow down and your computer will run painfully slow.

There are lots of other reasons why your computer might be running slowly, but this post is specifically for those who know they are running short on disk space.

He advises that instead of having to delete files or move things off to USB sticks or external hard drives, you can first try to free up some space on your computer that may be taken up by useless temporary files or system processes.

Hard drive space is usually eaten up in Windows that are set by default such as the recycle bin and systems restore function.

The recycle bin, the never-irritating and sometimes life-saving trash takes up a lot of space that it does not need. It uses a percentage of your hard drive in order to store deleted files.

However, this percentage is set by default at a very high number and ends up wasting a lot of space. The System Restore function, which gives your computer back up and running sometimes also takes up a lot of extra unnecessary space.

This only recovers Windows files, not any of your data. So having System Restore enabled on any other drive other than your C drive is completely useless.

It does not protect your data, but only protects Windows system files, so you do not need it for any other drive other than the main system drive. To fix this one, turn it off.

Despite the above saving a couple of GB’s worth of space, you can last a little bit longer before having to move stuff off. However, if your computer is still running slow, the other simple way of saving space is through the use of Windows utility disk cleanup.

This function searches the drive and then walks through the process of deleting. It gives options to delete temporary internet files, downloaded programme files from the Internet such as ActiveX controls and Java applets downloaded and other Installed programs that are not in use.

Disk cleanup can be directed to delete some or all of the files it identifies. With these few tips, the need to procure a new hard drive would not be necessary. However, once these are not of any help, then the last option will definitely be acquiring a new hard drive.

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