how much space do the virus def updates use?

[MuffinMan]

my main harddrive has been running on low space lately, mostly around 200 to 500. I know it's not a good thing, but I am trying to free up more space.

now the problem is I am having a hard time doing it because it seems to me every time avast updates I lose about 50mb of space. before the most recent update, I had about 215mb just an hour ago, but avast just updated and now I only have 155mb left. I regularly clear out user temp folder and browser cache, so the primary suspects are out. I am currently undergoing full virus scan to see if it's something else causing it in the mean time.

I checked the program file folder for avast and it uses about 390mb. that's normal right? or are there things I can clean out?

[DavidR]

The virus definitions sub-folders in the avast\defs folder are quite large. When there is a new definitions update the old database and the new increments are combined in a new sub-folder and the old folder remains until avast does its housekeeping and clears the old database version. So your avast installation can fluctuate in size by up to 93MB.


Your system is seriously hampered by a lack of hard disk space, if your hard disk gets to 80% full regularly you really should be looking at an upgrade as fragmentation also becomes a problem and windows refuses to do a defrag if you don't have 15% free space.

So you really need to free up more hard disk space, what have you done so far to free up space ?

[MuffinMan]

just lost another 30mb and the antivirus didn't find any thing wrong with my computer.

it seems to me something else is taking this space because avast folder didn't grow any bigger in the past 5 hours.

could be system restore but I just checked and it only used 33mb of my drive space.

it's just that today alone I lost about 700 megabytes to something I don't know about, that's why I am pissed

[MuffinMan]

is there some way to monitor specific drive activity?

is there some way for avast to also make the definition updates more compact? I am wondering if the cloud service is taking a lot of temporary space

[DavidR]

I don't know of any tool for monitoring drive activity/size, but browsing could easily add that and more. I have a massive drive 500GB for what I have on it and since I have fast broadband I don't allow the browser cache anything.

In all honesty 700MB should be a drop in the ocean on your HDD if it isn't then you really are in need of an HDD upgrade.

You didn't answer this question:
So you really need to free up more hard disk space, what have you done so far to free up space ?

Knowing what you are doing to recover space may help us to suggest other things that you may not have tried.

[schmidthouse]

A good cleaning with CCleaner and ATF-Cleaner could help in freeing up some HD
I use them both regularly.

[DavidR]

I rather feel that will probably not be enough, when the HDD is that close to being full.

I suspect that system restore may well be eating a lot of hard disk space.

[schmidthouse]

I rather feel that will probably not be enough, when the HDD is that close to being full.

I suspect that system restore may well be eating a lot of hard disk space.

Yes, that is always a good place to look as well.

[MuffinMan]

You didn't answer this question:
So you really need to free up more hard disk space, what have you done so far to free up space ?

I thought I did
free up temporary files, browser cache
disk cleanup
delete all but latest system restore, adjusting the system restore to use as less space as possible

like I said, the obvious stuff.

huh avast just decreased to 255mb. should I turn off streaming updates so the overall size don't fluctuate so much?

[DavidR]

Streaming updates are very small 1KB to 25KB during the course of the day you may receive 10 or more of these, not even 1MB in total. Too small to be of use and streaming updates are included in the next auto update and the old streaming folder removed, you would be saving nothing. After the last auto update there has only been one streaming update.

As I said avast does its housekeeping and removes old versions of the virus definitions folder, typically you will have the current VPS version and the last one until house keeping is done.

How big is that HDD of yours as having cleared house and you are still in dire straights you really are in need of an upgrade. I would be looking at either a second internal HDD or an off-line storage means and archive of any media files to free up more space on the primary HDD or upgrade that drive.

[MuffinMan]

so you were telling me that "avast installation can fluctuate in size by up to 93MB"

in your installation, it was only around 100 megabytes according to the pic in your attachment, but mine was varying from 250 to 450 mb's.
what's your setup? which components did you omit in your installation?

[DavidR]

Yes, but I'm only looking at the variation in the defs folder. Just look in the defs folder, the new VPS folder is made up of the contents of the old plus the incremental updates. This is where the most variation would take place as virus definitions will always be growing.

I have no idea how yours is varying by 250 to 450 mb's as you don't give us any information of where this variation takes place. The whole installation on my system is only 354MB. Even if you uninstalled avast you would gain next to nothing in the way of space, not to mention you would have to replace it with something else (you would find similar problems) or go unprotected.

The components shields won't actually use up that much HDD space and any update would be to core files and that wouldn't be the duplication seen in the virus definitions. I don't have the P2P or IM Shields installed as I don't use any P2P or IM programs.


But in all honesty even if it is varying from 250 to 450 mb's, that really isn't your most urgent consideration your HDD is too full and needs serious attention as I mentioned in my last post. Windows doesn't really like operating with this amount of free space, it is being hampered and your system performance is effected.

I did ask how big your HDD was but that went unanswered.

[Chim]

Wow!  And I thought my old HP Pavilion 6730 with a 10 Gig Hard Drive was Free Space-challenged.
When I do a thorough cleaning of everything, I wind up with around 3.28 Gig of Free Space on my Hard Drive.

Now ... David, your mentions in the past of the Virus Definitions Updates being typically around 200 to 300 KBytes appear to be about right.  The other day I performed a manual Update.  The Info I was given after the Update was complete indicated that my avast was updated from the "-1" version of the previous day to the "-1" version of that current day.  That means that was 2 Updates that were installed, right?

Well, those 2 Updates totaled 590 KBytes.  That means it would be an average of 295 KBytes per Virus Definitions Update ... in THIS case anyway.

That took 23 minutes on my Dial Up for an average of almost 12 minutes per Update.

[Chim]

155 Meg of Free Space left on a Hard Drive?
I'm surprised Windows would even work.

What's coming to mind is that if the Hard Drive is REALLY that seriously low on Free Space already ...
Isn't this coming Tuesday going to be Windows Update Tuesday?
Now THOSE Windows Updates seriously eat, chomp on, devour Hard Drive Space ... on seriously small Hard Drives.
If there is only 155 Meg of Free Space left on that Hard Drive, Windows Update Tuesday will NOT be a very good day for that Hard Drive.

[bobo1]

If You have windows xp. You can free tons of free space. Open up Windows folder. Open software distribution/DOWNLOAD. Clean out everything in this DOWNLOAD FOLDER (Related to windows update setup files) I clear this out monthly. Bet you will have about 1 gig or more in here!!!!! if you have a tiny hard drive? Windows operating systems like to put junk files that are not needed all over the place. *.old & *.BAK & TMP files JUNK!