.svn folders using a lot of disk space

Question

today I realized that the hidden .svn folders within my folders under version control eat up ~16 GB of hard drive space. I am using a SSD drive so this is quite a lot. Do I really need these huge subfolders? As far as I understand they are used for administration but why are they approximately the same size as the folder under version control itself?

Thanks!

Answer 1

These folders are necessary as long as you want to use SVN version control system. They are used to keep trace of your local version changes in order to commit your work and checkout (eventually merging with your information) upstream data.

If don't want to use version control anymore you could delete all .svn folders. If you don't mind keeping history you could make a clean checkout, delete .svn folders and then create a new repository.