Say you’re dealing with analyzing large datasets and using SAS. Because SAS does all the data manipulation on disk, you might need disk space quickly. Here are few places where you can find files to delete if you’re running Windows Vista – so that you don’t have to spend the time to go out and buy a new USB hard disk immediately.
For newer variations of Windows, the location might differ slightly. “userID” in the file paths below refers to your Windows logon.
C:\hiberfil.sys
If you have hibernation mode enabled, this files will take up the same amount of space as you have available in RAM. Given that most modern computers have at least 4 GB of RAM, deleting this can free up quite a bit of space quickly.
You cannot just delete this file. You can go into the command prompt as an administrator and run: powercfg -h off. To re-enable hibernation mode again, run: powercfg -h on
Trade off: Well, you can’t use hibernation mode until you make room for this file again. But I can usually live with standby mode for a little while. And if my analysis time is short, then I can just re-enable this after I finish my analysis.
Spotify cache (C:\Users\userID\AppData\Local\Spotify\Storage)
You can delete this and, as far as I can tell, no degrade in performance for Spotfiy.
Trade off: None that I am aware of.
OneNote cache and backups (C:\Users\kenshin\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneNote\12.0)
Depending on how big your OneNote notebooks are and what you store in them, the files can take up quite a bit of storage.
If you are deleting the cache, make sure the OneNote program is *closed*. OneNote regenerates the cache files once you start the program. So keep it close until you’re done with your SAS fun.
If you’re deleting the backup, just know that then you will *not* have backup. On occasion, OneNote files do get corrupted. So be careful.
Trade off: It takes a little time for OneNote to start up again because of the cache generation. If your OneNote files get corrupted often, you are better off *not* deleting the backup files.
Dropbox cache (C:\Users\kenshin\Documents\Dropbox\.dropbox.cache)
Depending on how active you are in the Dropbox directories, the cache can get quite large as well. For me personally, I have not had issues with deleting the cache while Dropbox is running. But to be safe, you should consider closing the Dropbox program before deleting the cache, and keep it close until you’re done with the disk space.
Finally, there are also the recycle bin that can be emptied, system restore points to delete (via the “more options” tab), and temp directories to clear out. Window’s Disk Cleanup program does all that for you if you would rather not do it manually. FYI, the disk cleanup program can delete the hiberfil.sys file and disable hibernation.