Why Does "Wipe Free Space" Take Extra-Long Every Other Time I Do It?
@mythociate (21437)
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
March 8, 2013 8:58am CST
My 'junk-file deleting program' (CCleaner) has an option to "Wipe Free Space"---which I turn on to clean what builds up from my traffic-exchanging screensaver (ask me for a link ... or 'MyLot "Search"' for 'traffic-exchange screensaver').
Sometimes the 'Wipe Free Space' takes longer than I have time to wait, so I end the program after the 'Wipe Free Space' has started.
My CCleaner runs automatically when I start up my machine in the morning, and I had-turned on the 'Wipe Free Space' last night and -ended the program early; so the 'Wipe Free Space' was on when CCleaner ran this morning. I could've sworn there were only 30-or-so minutes left on the 'Wipe Free Space'-countdown when I ended it last night; this morning, I had to end it again---the countdown was at TWO-AND-A-HALF HOURS!
Where did that two extra hours of data to 'wipe' come from!??
2 responses
@flamez3r0 (319)
• Puerto Rico
8 Mar 13
Hello :D. I don't use the cccleaner, but I believe the "free space" it refers to is the space on the hard drive that the operative system has marked as useable. Computers don't really "erase" data from the hard drive, but instead they overwrite the data when the space is used. So any program you have deleted don't actually disappear, it just stays there until something else uses the space in the hard drive it used to occupy. When cccleaner wipes free space it is actually overwriting on the data that has been marked as "useable", not cleaning remains on the emptiness. However, that also means that it is overwriting on the random data it itself made, since it was left as "useable" on the harddrive. Any time you restart the program it will overwrite any data on the drive that has been marked, which means any time you restart the program, it does so from the beginning.
@mythociate (21437)
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
8 Mar 13
meh?
You lost me there ... so CCleaner is going through & marking as "useable" all the space that it deems as "un-useable" because the space is full of 'being marked "useable"'?@flamez3r0 (319)
• Puerto Rico
8 Mar 13
No, the operative system marks space as useable when you delete things. To put it simply, if the harddrive was a town, the first time you download anything you build stuff, but when you delete stuff all you are doing is putting the sign up front that says that the space is available, you don't destroy the building itself. When you download something else, is like someone buying that building and doing whatever they want with it. In this example, cccleaner just changes all the buildings for sale into random ones, so that no one that checks can see your old building. But it doesn't change the sign up front, so if you run it again, it changes all buildings available, even those he changed in the past.
@mythociate (21437)
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
8 Mar 13
So it hides the 'old buildings' (files)---leaves them marked as 'useable' but hides the fact that anything's there (kinda like Khan did with that one building in The Shadow, clouding people's minds so that they didn't even know it had ever been there 
)?
)?
@cupkitties (7421)
• United States
8 Mar 13
For free space? 
That is odd. Makes me wonder how long it would take to wipe the whole drive as free space is supposed to be the faster option.
Do you also use Defraggler too? Try defragging first and then see if it speeds things up with CC. Well, it usually works for me anyway.
That is odd. Makes me wonder how long it would take to wipe the whole drive as free space is supposed to be the faster option.
Do you also use Defraggler too? Try defragging first and then see if it speeds things up with CC. Well, it usually works for me anyway. @cupkitties (7421)
• United States
8 Mar 13
The last time xps version was run on this system, it was so slow that I had to leave my computer on over night for it to finish. The next morning it was only on 80%..
Defraggler is a lot faster.
@mythociate (21437)
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
29 Mar 13
I've also heard rumors about that: I did a MyLot Search for 'advice for slow machines,' I got to a TechRepublic-article that said some guy had noticed his machine was slower after its files were 'compressed.'
Makes me wanna check Defraggler out!
@mythociate (21437)
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
8 Mar 13
Remind me how Defraggler is better than the defragmenter in XP
