John T
The Disk Cleanup update is in Win 7 too, but it's a bit weird to use. You have to run disk cleanup and go through the scan, and the Windows Update files initially won't show in the list. If you then click the button marked "Clean Up System Files" (requires admin privileges) it will do the scan again and add them to the list.

 
Thanks. It showed up in the list and was taking 792MB of my C drive. Deleted it. Good riddance!

Lesson well learned. Thanks.

I've got a dinosaur system and record to an external drive exclusively.   I don't think that's ever been a problem.  They are USB2 hard drives and I'm a modest home recorder nowadays.

WDI
If you don't use hybernation, most people don't, and it's on, by default, turn it off. This will recover a substantial amount of hard drive space from the system partition, usually equal to the amount of ram you have installed on your system.

I just looked and the hibernation file C:\hiberfil.sys (hidden OS file) on my system is 12 Gb.
Definitely something to consider if you're tight on room.
 
Turning off hibernation in power management should get rid of it.
 
If you're going to be changing your system drive, consider a 120 Gb SSD with a 80 GB partition for the OS.  You won't regret it and you can use your HD for whatever won't fit on it.
 
 

Like Paul I've just checked the hibernation file (I didn't know there were hidden OS files and how to show them until now.....I'm learning a LOT in the last 24hrs) and it's about 6GB. Good to know this. Thanks.
 
(@WDI: Yes, windows update files have been mentioned and they are indeed a major culprit. As for Apple devices, I have none.)
(@Bob: My laptop ports are USB2)
 
However....after reading all the helpful info from all of you, I still don't understand something. As I said, my laptop’s internal hard drive is 320GB (if I calculate the sizes of three partitions shown in Computer, it's 297.8GB in total). And if it's indeed better to move both the library contents (Kontakt, etc.) in D drive (partition) and project files, etc. in E drive (partition) over to an external drive and record directly into the external drive, then I can delete the partition D & E and expand the partition C and don't need to worry much about local hard drive space, do I? (i.e. no need to turn off hibernation or do Disk Clanup often, etc.?)
 
I guess what I'm trying to ask is...will moving the library contents, project files, presets, etc. to an external drive make a huge difference in recording (or mixing?) The reason why I'm asking such a basic question is because I've been stuck in the songwriting stage, or MIDI stage, for a long time and I haven't done any serious audio recording in Sonar since I upgraded to X1 (that's why my posts are mostly about midi, layouts, etc. aren't they? lol). The last time I did serious audio recording was....January this year…and it was done in Studio One 2….and I didn’t experience any issue.
 
When I upgraded to Windows 7, I optimized my system referring to the following page (and also Sonar Reference Guide and Quad-Capture manual):
http://www.presonus.com/c...7-for-Music-Production
And, according to the “Saving and File Management” section in this page, there are likely to be problems if you make your local drive "too full." So, does that mean if the drive isn’t too full there won’t be serious issues?
 
To better describe my current internal hard drive situation, let me just post a screenshot here (ignore the foreign language, please):


 
 
So, what do you think? The reason why partition D has a lot of free space is because I haven’t reinstalled Dim Pro, Rapture, etc. (but to be honest I’m not sure if I want to reinstall them because I seem to like Kontakt, VI.One and Nexus more than them) and also because there was a possibility that I buy a big piano library (it won’t happen for the time being, or forever, though).
 
So, should I turn off hibernation and save 6GB and maybe move part of data in partition E to an external drive not to make the internal drive “too full” and see if I’ll have any problem when I record audio in Sonar? (which I’m planning to do soon…hopefully)
 
Anyway, I still wonder if other laptop-only users in this forum are all using an external drive for samples, projects, etc.
 
Thanks
 
(off to bed)

rontarrant
Partitioning your hard drive into three parts isn't helping you at all. In fact, it may be causing you problems.
...
My recommendations:
- repartition your drive so it's all one partition
- get at least another four gigs (eight gigs, preferably)  of RAM if your laptop can accommodate it

 
There's actually one issue I'm starting to believe is caused by partitioning the drive, which is this (yes, it's still happening...) : http://forum.cakewalk.com...-go-away-m2831601.aspx
 
As for your recommendations, do you mean that I need more RAM IF I use just one drive (with everything in one partition)? I'm thinking of using an external drive for samples, projects, etc and in that case 8GB would be fine? (Well, my laptop can't accommodate more than 8GB RAM anyway...)

Partitioning drives does not cause problems.

+1

Blades
USB drive speed would be a consideration.  If you happen to have an external SATA port on that laptop, that would be a better way to go, though they are pretty rare to find.  I have a feeling you might not be thrilled with the track count/cpu usage of a USB 2 drive for your projects/audio (unless you were thinking of the audio stream on c: and the projects themselves on external - though the projects are so small, it's the audio that takes up the space).
 
Also, I don't know that you mentioned: is the internal drive in your laptop 5400rpm or 7200rpm?  If the former and you get a 7200 in the external drive, you might not see performance issues in comparison, but if you have a 7200 internal drive, it's going to be hard to match that speed with a USB2 device.  These external drives are great for storage but less so for fast real-time access than the internal sata drives. 
 
All that said, laptops are generally not my favorites for performance like Sonar really needs to work right anyway.  Desktops just TEND TO have more resources and available overhead in my experience.

 
Thanks for good advice. The internal drive in my laptop is 7200rpm. And I just checked the spec of my external hard drive and it says......N/A. So, I guess I shouldn't take a risk and should just continue using the internal drive for everything. I'm not particularly suffering from an issue at the moment (except for the minor "Busy" message issue, and the disk free space issue which I can now solve by resizing the C partition and deleting unnecesary files, thanks to everyone who provided helpful information in this thread). But if I start recording lots of audio clips in a project and start mixing with lots of plugins, I may have some serious issue. I'll think about what to do then.

CakeAlexS
If you haven't already, get yourself a copy of Acronis True Image 2014, now on sale till the end of the month.
Great for backups but also good for cloning hard drives when upgrading them, I suspect that might come in useful soon.
 
Cheers

 
Thanks. I'm using Acronis True Image 2009 for backups. I'm not sure about "cloning hard drives." What benefit do I get from that?

I'm thinking of using Win 7 for a long time (at least until the next OS is released), and I think I don't need a bigger internal drive at the moment (I'm not buying any more virtual instruments. Bought too many). Also, True Image Home 2009 is working fine. But thanks for your suggestions.  (I'm working less these days to spend more time on music, so I need to save money )
 
(off to bed)

 
One huge partition may be a pain to back up.
 

CakeAlexS
> One huge partition may be a pain to back up.
 
Partition cloning/exact images are always the best way to go unless you like playing Russian roulette with your restores, and backups are always a pain.

Not sure if you're agreeing or not, but I'm talking about always having to image 320gb's worth (for example) of a drive with a single partition even if only 80gb's are used.
 
I agree partitions are mostly for organisation (and backups), but that's exactly what I use them for, not for performance.  Separate physical drives for performance.   And SSD's !
 

Oh BTW when I said "exact images", yes I was misleading although for general purposes yes they are. Sorry.