Keep in mind, if you leave hibernation on, it can only reside on your boot drive but your paging file can live on any drive.
Glad it was the restore files, I actually disabled system restore on mine since I run a rotating backup nightly. (Rotating means that I always have two days of backup available when I am backing up to a third backup file, a rotation of three files)

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)

Jlien X
I partitioned the hard disk into three drives (C/D/E

Partitioning your hard drive into three parts isn't helping you at all. In fact, it may be causing you problems.
 
Depending on the size of project you're working on, eight gigs of RAM may or may not be enough to keep Windows from hitting your swap file and the swap file--if left to default settings--is going to expand and contract depending on which and how much software you're running.
 
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
 

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...)

I had the same exact problem just a few months back. On my business computer.
 
It turned out to be the system restore files and folder size. There are options to allow you to make the folder smaller. Doing that one thing, I gained over 40% of my drive back.
 
Once that was done the machine ran so much better.

Partitioning drives does not cause problems.

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.

+1

WDI
Partitioning drives does not cause problems.

 
Then the "Busy" message issue I mentioned above shouldn't be because of partitioning. Good to know that. But I think it's something to do with the folder location because I've recently read someone having a similar issue and IIRC he said the issue was resolved by moving the Picture Cache folder to some other location. My Picture Cache folder is in the E partition, and if I discover that my problem also gets resolved by moving it somewhere else, and if it has to be in C, then I'll put everything in C and remove D and E. There's no problem with the sound and the waveforms, but all the audio clips in all projects keep showing "Busy" at the end of the clip name, which is a bit annoying.

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.