Lsing space on my hard drive?

[Peppurr101]

Hello,
Since I installed SP2 on the 22nd of July, I am losing 1-2G of space from my hard drive.
I have plenty of space so it's not a really bad problem, just irritating.
I started out with 280G free of 338. When I installed SP2 it went down to about 260.
Last night I was down to 239 and this morning it's 237.
It usually happens overnight and I don't know where to being looking. Would it be restore point's or system check points?

Other than that the computer is working fine..

If someone could shed some light on this, I'd appreciate it.
Thanks

 

[KingOfChaos]

Hello,
Since I installed SP2 on the 22nd of July, I am losing 1-2G of space from my hard drive.
I have plenty of space so it's not a really bad problem, just irritating.
I started out with 280G free of 338. When I installed SP2 it went down to about 260.
Last night I was down to 239 and this morning it's 237.
It usually happens overnight and I don't know where to being looking. Would it be restore point's or system check points?

Other than that the computer is working fine..

If someone could shed some light on this, I'd appreciate it.
Thanks

Sounds like your system is making a lot of restore points. These are normally large. Has windows been updating itself a lot through windows update?

 

[brummyfan]

This tutorial might help you:http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/76227-system-restore-disk-space.html
Shadow copy storage normally takes up to 15% of your HD space.HTH.

 

[Peppurr101]

Sounds like your system is making a lot of restore points. These are normally large. Has windows been updating itself a lot through windows update?

Hi KOC,
Thanks for your reply.
Since I have updated to SP2, I have about 20 restore points, about half of which are scheduled system checkpoints.
I have made three of my own prior to installing updates and the rest are created by windows update for defender updates etc
I think the biggest one was the restore point windows created when it installed SP2

This tutorial might help you:http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/76227-system-restore-disk-space.html
Shadow copy storage normally takes up to 15% of your HD space.HTH.

Thank you brummyfan, I'll have a look. Am I right in assuming it IS the restore points and not some SP2 thing? When Vista gets up around 15% it'll clean some of them out?
Thanks

 

[whs]

Here is a little write-up I made to explain the phenomenon:

This is probably an increase of your allocated shadowstorage. With each install and uninstall, Vista writes a shadow (restore point) of about 1GB - plus one is written each day. For that purpose Vista reserves 15% of your OS disk partition and allocates/uses it as needed.
Find Command Prompt (in All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt), right click on it and Open as Administrator. Into the little black window type VSSADMIN LIST SHADOWSTORAGE and hit ENTER. It will show 3 numbers:
Allocated - that is the amount that it has grabbed from your OS partition at this time
Used - this is the amount currently used
Maximum - this is the ultimate amount it will allocate and use
Once you reach "maximum", it will reuse the space deleting the oldest shadows for the storage of the newest shadows. With e.g. an appr. 200Gb of OS partition you should expect a maximum of 30GBs that are reserved for the system and that you cannot use. If your OS partition is larger or smaller, the shadowstorage will be accordingly (always 15% max.) But the restore points (shadows) are required the day you need to do a system restore.

 

[Peppurr101]

Here is a little write-up I made to explain the phenomenon:

This is probably an increase of your allocated shadowstorage. With each install and uninstall, Vista writes a shadow (restore point) of about 1GB - plus one is written each day. For that purpose Vista reserves 15% of your OS disk partition and allocates/uses it as needed.
Find Command Prompt (in All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt), right click on it and Open as Administrator. Into the little black window type VSSADMIN LIST SHADOWSTORAGE and hit ENTER. It will show 3 numbers:
Allocated - that is the amount that it has grabbed from your OS partition at this time
Used - this is the amount currently used
Maximum - this is the ultimate amount it will allocate and use
Once you reach "maximum", it will reuse the space deleting the oldest shadows for the storage of the newest shadows. With e.g. an appr. 200Gb of OS partition you should expect a maximum of 30GBs that are reserved for the system and that you cannot use. If your OS partition is larger or smaller, the shadowstorage will be accordingly (always 15% max.) But the restore points (shadows) are required the day you need to do a system restore.

Hi whs
Thank you, that must be it:


I wonder if it will go to 40 or 50?

A question, though. I thought only Vista Ultimate did shadow copies or am I getting that mixed up with something else?
~Thanks

 

[Peppurr101]

Ahh.. never mind.
I think I found the answer to that last question..

The Storage Team at Microsoft - File Cabinet Blog : Identifying how much disk space is used for restore points in Windows Vista

 

[whs]

It will eventually go to "maximum". The "allocated" is temporary at this moment - just to make breathing room for the next shadow (restore point).
The function that is exclusive to Ultimate and Enterprise editions is Imaging/Ghosting. But you can have that too in the home editions with OEM software. Here is a summary I once made: Ghosting approaches - summary because of popular demand « How-To Geek Forums

 

[KingOfChaos]

I pretty much clean these out once a week, myself. I can't stand having a crap load of restore points taking up perfectly good HDD space. It's why I have a weekly backup to a 1tb external drive.

 

[Peppurr101]

Cool! Now I know it's the restore points!
Thanks all!