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System Drive C: Full on WHS2011


JeffZ

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I wasn't sure if this was more of a general WHS2011 or DrivePool question! I am running Windows Home Server 2011 and when I did the original install/setup, it appears the C: drive was set up with 60GB as the system disk (I don't recall an option to select this). Does this sound right?

Anyway, now the C: drive shows full - I went to do a Windows update and realized there wasn't enough room to install them.

The server has 4x2TB drives, I'm using StableBit Drive Pool and there is still 488GB free on my 4 drives (or, 122 per drive).

How can I increase the system drive or at least be able to install further updates?? I suspect, it wouldn't need to be much larger, just enough to accommodate future updates.

Any suggestions/advice/help would be greatly appreciated - or, perhaps I didn't provide enough info, if so let me know!

Thank you, greatly!!

 

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Yes, this sounds right. By default, it creates a 60GB partition for the OS (if it makes you feel any better, in the early early beta's, they wanted to use 40GBs....)

 

 

As for freeing system space, have you tried running the disk cleanup wizard on the server (may require you to use Remote Desktop to access the server)?
Also, if you're not using the hibernate/sleep feature of the server, you may want to disable it (powercfg -h off, from an elevated command prompt).

 

 

That, and do you have anything else installed on the server?

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Thanks, I ran the disk cleanup wizard - it didn't gain any negligible space. I haven't been using the hibernate/sleep feature, so I can try disabling that.

 

Otherwise, the only thing installed on the server is WHS2011 and DrivePool. Is it possible to extend this drive without much effect to my pool? As I mentioned, I have 4 drives in the pool, unduplicated. Is there way to easily make this 80GB or so?

 

Any other recommendations? Thanks!!

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The disk cleanup should have an "advanced" option. There should be a "Clean up system files" button at the bottom. That may allow you to clean up some additional space... but maybe not.

 

 

And yes, you should be able to expand the partition.

 

However, how you have it setup right now will make it more difficult. Namely, you're going to need to use an "offline" tool to resize the partitions. That, or get another drive, and remove the D:\ drive (the partition sitting on the system disk) from the pool. The reason is that Windows' native tools won't let you move that partition so you can resize the system partition. You'd have to delete the D:\ partition, resize the C:\ partition, and then recreate the D:\ partition.  Or use an "offline tool".  

 

Not exactly "simple", but it is very much easy.  Though, personally, I'd recommend ~100GB-150GB for the system. That gives you plenty of breathing room.

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I didn't run out of room on my OS disk, but I didn't see a point to having the boot disk partitioned that way. Since I wasn't storing anything on the extra volume I deleted it and grew volume C: to take up the whole disk.

 

Copy any data you want to keep from the volume to another location. You can use the dashboard to move shared folders to another disk.

Then go to Server Management console > Storage > Disk Management to manage the partitions/volumes. Instructions from MS here

 

I'm surprised to see the system volume so full, though. You might be able to use WinDirStat to see what's burning up all your space and adjust your system configuration as necessary.

 

As for keeping things tidy, I have a batch file I run periodically to clean things up on the system disk. I'd provide a link, but I've recently switched registrars and dns providers and Dyn doesn't seem to want to let go. WTH, Tucows?

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Are you using a 3rd party backup solution for your shares?  I was using a program that would only backup data in a zip file, no mater if you were using compression or not, and when it would merge archives, it would store a huge temp file on the c drive, needless to say I found a new backup program.

 

my whs install with DP is taking up 33GB's. 

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Thank you all for the great information - I will be looking to expand my server capacity, real soon. Aside from my system drive, I'm limited in my overall storage capacity.

I found where most of the data on the system drive is, I have 37.3GB (4,206 files, 64 folders) in my C:\Windows\Temp folder. Would it be safe to delete all the files in this folder?? This would free up a lot of room until I can replace a drive an expand my system drive allocation.

Just wanted to run this by the experts! Quickly looking, this was the single largest folder - otherwise, largest were typically 4-5GB. Not sure why this stacked up like it did.

 

Thanks!

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Caution is always a good thing. But having a Server Backup setup is even better. You do have one setup, right?

 

Also, I hate that Microsoft stuck with 60GB for the system partition. IMO, that is still too small... but it is better than 40GB, I guess.

 

By the way - thanks! And, yes I do have my backups set. Although, I could use more drives to be able to store a set offsite, that'll be the next phase.

 

 

One follow up question - I had asked about the Temp folder filling up. It seems, I need to empty this regularly - about once a week. Any idea how I can keep these files from accumulating - is there something I can turn off so I don't need to manually open, delete my Temp files? Glad I know why it fills but not, I want to keep it from filling up - either auto dump or stop collecting! When I run disk cleanup, it shows 0kb in my TEMP folder despite these files.

 

Right now, I've got about 700 of the files I attached in the screenshot. Any suggestions, I'd appreciate it!

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Well, do you know what is creating the temp files? If you do, that would be the easiest way to stop it from happening. Those files look awfully specific.

 

 

As for scheduling cleanup, this may work:

http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Disk-Cleanup-Using-98ad13bc

You can save this somewhere and then set Task Scheduler to run it automatically (like once a week, or even every day).

 

 

 

And it sounds like these files are actually Windows Update related...

 

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/e508633e-a55c-460b-ac90-d1f5d78fd1b5/cabnnnnn-files-in-folder-windowstemp?forum=winservergen

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Well, do you know what is creating the temp files? If you do, that would be the easiest way to stop it from happening. Those files look awfully specific.

 

 

As for scheduling cleanup, this may work:

http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Disk-Cleanup-Using-98ad13bc

You can save this somewhere and then set Task Scheduler to run it automatically (like once a week, or even every day).

 

 

And it sounds like these files are actually Windows Update related...

 

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/e508633e-a55c-460b-ac90-d1f5d78fd1b5/cabnnnnn-files-in-folder-windowstemp?forum=winservergen

 

Thanks! Ya, I don't know what is creating these. I'll try the scheduled cleanup - but, these don't show up in the Disk Cleanup (Temp files show 0kb) so I don't know if this will work. I'll also look through the link you sent and see if I can get to the cause/creation.

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I am having the same problem.  I discovered that WHS2011 is creating files in the Temp folder to create the back-up files of the server before they are written to the server's back-up drive, tape etc. 

 

Unfortunately it seems to not have the ability to automatically do any house-keeping of the temp folder.  

 

I found that if you delete the contents of the temp folder prematurely (files created on the same day of a back-up) it will cause the server to possibly crash and then restart.  It will somehow also delete your client setting, which means computers which are registered to be backed up regularly on your network become de-registered.

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You can still create an autoexec.bat that runs at bootup. You can enter a "del c:\temp\*.* /s" that will catch most of the files. Of course set the path to match what you have for your real temp file.

 

And I will concur, if you have space on the boot HDD, you can successfully expand the boot partition. Another solution, which I use when setting up my corporate systems, is to never install programs to C:. 

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You can still create an autoexec.bat that runs at bootup. You can enter a "del c:\temp\*.* /s" that will catch most of the files. Of course set the path to match what you have for your real temp file.

 

And I will concur, if you have space on the boot HDD, you can successfully expand the boot partition. Another solution, which I use when setting up my corporate systems, is to never install programs to C:. 

Better yet, you can create a scheduled task to do this. :)

 

 

And even better, you can run "c:\windows\SYSTEM32\cleanmgr.exe /d C:" 

 

you can also use "/sageset:#" (any number 0 - 65535), and this well create a profile attached to the specified number and let you set the options.  You can then use "/sagerun:#" (where the "#" is the number you set previously) to run the specific profile.

 

This way, you can run "c:\windows\SYSTEM32\cleanmgr.exe /d C: /sagerun:#" as a scheduled task and automatically clean the system up. 

 

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/253597

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I understand the thread is quite old but at least this solved my problem with the temp folder getting filled up, maybe it helps others:

 

found on microsoft answers:

 

Checking <windows>\Logs\CBS folder I found lots of .log and (some) .cab files

It seems, that windows wasn't able to zip (makecab.exe) one of the .log files.

 

Solution was:

in <windows>\Logs\CBS folder delete the oldest .log file (you can also delete them all)

in <windows>\temp folder delete every cab_xxxx

 

in the following regeneration process, the remaining (CBS) logs where zipped correctly, and <windows>\temp was left clean

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I have worked on this issue on and off with 2 few different 2011 WHS systems for awhile now.  This forum gave me some good ideas and I wanted to pass along my final working long-term resolution.

 

I found that clearing out the C:\Windows\Temp folder frees up just over 32GB of data a 2011 WHS server that has the standard 60GB partition.  I have another 2011 WHS that I extended the partition out to 120GB, which solved problem for a little while but continued to fill the hard drive eventually, and clearing that folder would net 84GB for free space.  This folder is not cleared with the Windows Disk Cleanup program for some reason, so I took alternate measures.

 

I found that every 30 minutes a 125M "cab_xxxx_x.<no extension>" file being saved to the C:\Windows\Temp directory.  I have not found the source yet, but I did write a .BAT file to clear this folder and added it to a scheduled task to complete once a day to solve the issues on both systems.  A previous suggestion to add a command in the autoexec.bat file did not work since this is a server and is hardly ever rebooted/restarted.

 

I also found from a previous suggestion about 7.5GB of junk log files in the C:\Windows\Logs\CBS directory that could be deleted.  I have deleted these over a year ago and my problem persisted.  Then I completely wiped the 2011 WHS and did a fresh install and recreated my drivepool and moved all my data back.  The only software I loaded after the fresh install was Stablebit Drivepool and Dropbox.  And somehow after time this problems resurrects unexpectedly.  

 

I now created a simple .bat file in Notepad and added this to the task scheduler to run daily and my problems seem to be at bay now for quite awhile.  I hope I'm done with this for good :)

 

BAT FILE:

REM   Program to delete temp files in the the Windows Temp folder that continue to accumulate quickly and fill the OS drive.
@echo off
del c:\Windows\Temp\*.* /S /Q
 
 
If this helps anyone, even one person from the trouble I have endured with these two systems over the years, then it was worth my time to write this out :)
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I know this is an ancient thread, but the information still applies to us still running WHS 2011 (like me!).   So instead of posting a new thread I am replying in this one.

Running WHS 2011 for almost 10 years now, has resulted in the system partition filling up slowly, mainly because of the winsxs folder.  I have already tried many options (disk cleanup, dism etc), and can't get it any smaller.  I have around 14GB of space on the C: drive now.  So, I was thinking about resizing the system partition to get more space.

From what I have gathered, it is possible to re-size the system partition using various methods to increase the size > 60GB.  Running Server manager with disk management also seems to allow the shrinking of the D: partition and increasing the size of the system partition, but haven't tried it yet. But, will you have a problem during a bare metal restore to a larger system partition?  It's been awhile since I've done one,  but I remember WHS 2011 restore can be pretty finicky at times.  I think I remember having to initialize only the partition, and not format it for restore to work reliably. 

If you create, say a 100GB partition first, and then select if for restore, I wonder if WHS restore would balk at the partition size, or maybe re-create it to the 60GB size, in which case your restore data wouldn't fit, and you would be stuck?

Anyone know offhand?

I hate to be the Guinea pig!!

 

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