100GB free, but BootCamp says only 27GB

[cowbellallen]

I have 100GB free on my SSD, but while installing BootCamp it says I only have 27GB available.

Some searching tells me that my SSD needs to be defragged because the 100GB is not in a continuous 'block', but that seems counter to what I've always thought about how Macs work. On top of that, it's like $40 for the software needed.

Is there any easier and more affordable (free) way to solve this problem?

 

[mgroot]

Wether the space is in one continuous block or scattered all over, if there's 100GB free, there's 100GB free. Defragging won't change that, and that's not Mac specific btw

 

[cowbellallen]

Wether the space is in one continuous block or scattered all over, if there's 100GB free, there's 100GB free. Defragging won't change that, and that's not Mac specific btw

So why won't Boot Camp let me install Windows with more than 27GB?

 

[mgroot]

So why won't Boot Camp let me install Windows with more than 27GB?

I have no clue, but hard drives don't work like that that they can only install something if there's enough room in one continuous block. They'd stop working pretty quickly if that was the case.

I suspect there are some hidden files in the way.. Have you emptied the trash for starters?

 

[Dark Dragoon]

Wether the space is in one continuous block or scattered all over, if there's 100GB free, there's 100GB free. Defragging won't change that, and that's not Mac specific btw

This is true in most cases, but not when you are attempting to shrink a partition (so you can add another after the existing one for bootcamp).

If you are shrinking a partition you can't have data (parts of files) in locations outside of the space the partition will take up. Defragmentation can help here as it usually moves the files closer to the start of the drive (memory location wise) as a side effect of defragmenting. Thus allowing you to shrink the size of the partition by a greater amount.