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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.

18 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. why I won't use onedrive by lophophore · · Score: 4, Interesting

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

    Thanks but no thanks.

    --
    there are 3 kinds of people:
    * those who can count
    * those who can't
    1. Re:why I won't use onedrive by rudy_wayne · · Score: 4, Funny

      "Storage Sense can perform its cleanup process periodically (every day, week, or month) or automatically whenever the system is low on disk space."

      That's a great feature.

      If it's 1987.

    2. Re:why I won't use onedrive by spire3661 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Apple's approach in insane. Its either 'let us do it all for you' or 'well fuck you, you are on your own'. Also, they have two different paradigms for how they treat the device. Itunes treats the device as disposable, where all master copies reside on the computer. For photos, it treats the device as a sacred repository where anything deleted of it also deletes the master copy on the server. Its outright stupid.

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      Good-bye
    3. Re:why I won't use onedrive by TurboStar · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

    4. Re:why I won't use onedrive by jawtheshark · · Score: 3, Informative
      While I do think all this Cloud stuff is stupid, you think about the wrong devices. Think of the cheap laptops and tablets that come with 32GB or 64GB eMMC as main storage. 32GB is filled by Windows itself, if you look funny at it. With 64GB you have a bit more leeway, but even that fills up quickly depending on usage.

      It's slow, it's crappy and I advice against getting such machines (I have a Chinese tablet with 64GB, split up in something like 40GB for Win10 and 20GB for Android or so... The specs are decent enough, but I'm pretty sure the bottleneck is the eMMC)

      I mean, even the Surface 3 (not Surface Pro 3), a Microsoft product uses eMMC. The Surface Go does too.

      So, yes storage is ubiquitous, except when it isn't... and people can and will buy these devices because they don't know any better.

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      Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
    5. Re: why I won't use onedrive by Mordaximus · · Score: 3, Informative

      Friend of mine has an iPhone and wants to go to Android. But somehow she is unae to download her 6000 photos of her travels around the world.
      So eother ditch sevetal years of memory, or stick with Apple.

      There are many ways to accomplish this. One would be prior to ditching her iPhone, sync those photos to service of choice. Google Photos I assume can do this for instance.

  2. What could possibly go wrong with this. by Ziest · · Score: 4, Insightful

    From a company that still has not figured out how security works.

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    Another day closer to redwood heaven
  3. security by bagofbeans · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh, MS knows how security works. Their income security, their relationship security with Big Surveillance.

  4. sigh by devslash0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've said this before but OS-as-a-service does not work. Windows is currently unsuitable for any serious business use. It's becoming an always-online, uncontrollable and unpredictable data harvesting tool. You simply cannot use it offline anymore and with this "feature" it is now pure garbage.

  5. Should be just the thing by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  6. But I'm sure it won't remove... by devslash0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...all the Store crap it installed without anyone's permission.

  7. What a colossally stupid idea. by Jason1729 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  8. Man you idiots by n3r0.m4dski11z · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Look i hate microsoft, i hate windows 10, but I do have to support it. Out of control onedrive files, especially on a multi user computer, is a constant plague. People just dont set their files online only. They just dont. Having the OS manage that for them should have been a feature YEARS ago.

    40gb in a teams filestore is like no problem for anyone but me. Now thats replicated to 20 people in a department, wasting all that local storage space and BANDWIDTH. So yes, microsoft finally got around to FIXING an obvious undersight and all you people see is "microsoft" and "cloud" and "delete" and are all like nooope! without actually thinking or knowing what you guys are talking about.

    This is a windows admin's dream if you use teams or onedrive, which face it, many companies are moving to for various reasons i wont get into. Most features they put out are ass and break things, and this may be as well, but on paper it would be a HUGE help.
    Look at the list of what its deleting. All temp files. We have fileshares, cloud and on premises, so people dont have anything local on their machines. They can be reimaged or stolen or surged. And they need to be cleaned, manually, when their disks fill up with cache files that the OS should be dealing with!

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  9. (rolls eyes) by commodore64_love · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Windows 10 already eats WAY too much of my internet connection on its stupid updates. (No I don't need an update of Internet Edge, because I never use it.... where's the stupid "turn updates off" option?) It slows everything down, such that I can't even load Youtube and watch a video until the update is finished.

    Now they want to offload tempt files across my line too? Come on! I truly hate this company (and that hatred goes back to 1990).

    Microsoft: Please stop sucking. Please treat your users & their computers with RESPECT instead of your personal servants.

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  10. Re:Learned nothing from Jennifer Lawrence by orient · · Score: 3, Interesting

    OwnCloud - I control both the client and the server.

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    Laudele lor desigur m-ar mahni peste masura.
  11. Look inside first, Microsoft by Scutter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How about instead of randomly deleting my personal files off of my personal device, you start moving your own "rarely used" files? C:\Windows\WinSXS is a perennial problem. You can't tell me that you need all that SXS data available at a moment's notice. What about the SoftwareDistribution directory? What about all of your uninstallers and other crap that fills up my Windows directory? How about let's look at moving that stuff to the cloud first, eh?

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    "Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
  12. It sill won't remove ... by scdeimos · · Score: 3, Informative

    ... all the temporary folders created by programs in the %LOCALAPPDATA% folder hierarchy.

    e.g.: Whenever you open a file attachment in Outlook it gets saved into [C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\Content.Outlook\H83V4PYQ], which is not your temp folder [C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp] and, despite the [INetCache] in there, this folder does not get touched by cache clean up in Internet Options.

    None of this gets cleaned up by the Disk Cleanup Wizard and I doubt this new tool will help with that either.

  13. Re:Legal? by vtcodger · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

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    You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey