Re: How do I upgrade System drive?
- From: "leew [MVP]" <useContactPage@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 01 Jun 2008 19:37:30 -0400
Pegasus (MVP) wrote:
"leew [MVP]" <useContactPage@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:48431660$0$11615$607ed4bc@xxxxxxxxxPegasus (MVP) wrote:"leew [MVP]" <useContactPage@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:4842fb3f$0$15180$607ed4bc@xxxxxxxxxI've got SBS servers with 12 GB hard drives and I don't give them constant attention - I check them maybe every six months.Jerry K wrote:I beg to disagree. In my experience, 10 GBytes is very tight,Hi,Why?
I need to install a bigger system drive on my Server 2003 DC. However, the software I have, Ghost, does not run under Server OSes. How are others upgrading their drives?
Thanks,
Jerry
How large is the C: drive?
What's using up the space?
I'll tell you, in my experience, the CHEAPER, FASTER way to do this - move things off the C: drive that don't necessarily belong. Often people seem to think 10-15 GB is too little... I say it's more than enough if the server is setup appropriately.
-Lee
15 GBytes is reasonable and 20 GBytes is good. With 10 GBytes,
even if you keep the Exchange Information Store and the paging
file on a different drive, you have to keep on juggling things in
order to prevent the system drive from overfilling. IMHO a robust
server installation is one that does not need constant attention.
Please, elaborate on what takes up space that you feel like you need that much space. The C: drive should contain primarily 3 things of consequence - Documents and Settings, Program Files, and Windows. Now, this is a server... so you're not adding programs to it frequently.
The user profiles - there shouldn't be that many user profiles nor should there be much in said user profiles - certainly no Archive PST and no downloads on the desktop and no documents in My Documents. So what is going to take up space in Documents and Settings. I submit, Documents and Settings should be 500 MB AT MOST.
Next, Program Files. What's in there? Maybe an AV solution - maybe. Exchange if it's an Exchange Server. SQL if it's a SQL server. Some miscellaneous client utilities. In most cases, this should not take up more than 2 GB - probably less. And again, it's a server - what are you adding to this so frequently that it's filling up space?
Finally, Windows itself. Check the size of it on most of your servers. For me - and mostly on SBS systems - the folder is 6-7 GB. And that's without cleaning out some of the old patches and without moving the ServicePackFiles and DLLCache to another partition. Personally, once every 6 months or so, I remove some of the old (9 months and older) patch backups ($NTUninstall...) folders. But that's once every six months... hardly constant attention.
Now, unless my math is off, .5+2+7=9.5 GB. So yes, 10 GB CAN be on the slim side... And if I'm setting up a new server TODAY, I'm making the partition 15 GB. But I can survive with MINIMAL maintenance (and some one time modifications) in a 10 GB partition as well.
Now, a terminal server is another matter - that I would absolutely use the largest C: drive possible.
If I've missed something, please let me know...
I was going to post this depending on what the response was on actual C: drive size, but you might want to review this link - I'm always looking for corrections/other perspectives. http://www.lwcomputing.com/tips/static/bootdrivesize.asp
-Lee
Here is a typical profile of a SBS system drive:
1,019,156,916 6,569 c:\I386
1,590,697,258 6,526 c:\ClientApps
1,612,481,164 2,929 c:\Documents and Settings
3,029,565,809 18,180 c:\Program Files
3,603,557,590 13,502 c:\WINDOWS
10,855,458,737 Total
Most of the space in c:\Documents and Settings is consumed by
backup catalog files. While it is possible to move the ClientApps
folder somewhere else, it is tedious because some applications
cannot easily be persuaded to reside on a partition other than
the system partition.
You mention a requirement of 9.5 GBytes, leaving just 500 MBytes
of free space on a 10 GByte system partition. This is far too little for
my taste - I have seen servers where Windows took up +/- 500
MBytes from one day to the next for internal housekeeping purposes,
e.g. for the c:\Windows\CSC folder. 2 GBytes of free space is the
bare minimum I will tolerate.
Perhaps we should let the OP have a say in the matter too - it is
his problem, after all.
I don't mean to hijack the person's question, but from my perspective, i386 should be moved off C: and placed on another partition - TECHNICALLY, it's not required anyway, though I fully understand why you would like to have it.
I've never seen any problems with moving client apps and if I always do - usually pre-install, but occasionally post.
Periodically, (again, once every six months or so), I go in and clean out old catalogs for backups. So yes, on an SBS system, that is more of a concern, but still on a NON-SBS system, it's less of an issue (as is the clientapps folder which won't exist. And what's in the Program Files folder? I suspect you have some MSDE databases there that I'd move to another partition. Once these items are moved, there's little recurring issue to worry about and you still have 3 GB of available space - OR MORE. And personally, I like keeping my available space at no less than 25% but no more than 50%. In the example above, I'd expect, with appropriate items moved, the C: drive would see 6-6.5 GB used, not 10.8.
And to be clear, I'm not saying one should make a 10 GB partition TODAY. But, a considering what can be moved and the hassle in repartitioning, I would strongly recommend moving data around before repartitioning. On new servers, I go with 15-20 GB C: drives... but I don't worry much about 10-15 GB drives either.
-Lee
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