Windows 10 Will Use the Cloud To Free Up Disk Space (arstechnica.com)

The next update to Windows 10, due to be released in October, will be smarter about how it frees up disk space and cleans up temporary files. Ars Technica reports: As part of its Storage Sense feature, Windows will be able to automatically remove the local copies of OneDrive files (unless they've been set as always available offline). The operating system will determine which files to remove based on when they were opened: files used more recently than a certain number of days will be retained locally, while those that haven't been used will be replaced with placeholders. The system will remove files until the operating system reckons it has enough free space for normal operation.

Storage Sense will also be able to remove temporary or otherwise unneeded files such as system logs and image thumbnails. It will also be able to remove old files from the download directory. The temporary-file cleanup (which can also remove certain cache files, driver packages, old anti-virus definitions, and more) was previously handled by the Disk Cleanup tool. That tool is now deprecated, as Storage Sense does everything it used to do and more. Storage Sense can perform its cleanup process periodically (every day, week, or month) or automatically whenever the system is low on disk space.

Comments

why I won't use onedrive

[lophophore]

That's all I need, files magically disappearing from my local media.

Thanks but no thanks.

Re:why I won't use onedrive

[TurboStar]

That's all I need, files magically disappearing from my local media. Thanks but no thanks.

Don't enable the "Files On-Demand" function and it'll make every file available always."Files On-Demand" is there today but all it does is, for example, not download a file you created on PC#1 to PC#2 until you try to access it on PC#2. The new feature uses access statistics to do things more automatically if you let it. No reason to think your files will magically disappear. There's plenty of reasons to not use OneDrive, but this isn't one of them.

Should be just the thing

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

In the hypothetical world where Comcast imposes tight control and strict bandwidth caps on my SATA bus; while I'm free to purchase copious, low-latency, WAN options from a reasonably competitive market this would be ideal.

As it is, I'm sure 'Cortana guesses which files you don't really need access to right now' will be a hilarious game for the whole family.

What a colossally stupid idea.

[Jason1729]

In a world where 14TB hard drives are under $500, 10TB hard drives are under $300, and small hard drives are under $40, and all are much, much faster than internet storage....why the hell would anyone be stupid enough to think this is a good idea?

Even 1TB SSDs are below $150 and good brands at $160. Even for an ultrabook user, you'd have to be an idiot to want this.

Re:What a colossally stupid idea.

[theurge14]

Because the common desktop/laptop user out there still to this day does not backup files from their hard drives.

How many times over the years has someone handed you their old busted laptop and asked you if you could please recover all their old photos from there please?

Re:Learned nothing from Jennifer Lawrence

[orient]

OwnCloud - I control both the client and the server.

Re:Legal?

[vtcodger]

Seems like GDPR compliance in the EU is likely to be a problem. I suspect that HIPAA compliance in the US might be a problem for medical data, but I don't know enough about HIPAA to be sure.

This really could be Microsoft's dumbest idea since the $@#%& Registry.