Over 300gb of space for the Microsoft SQL Server folder

Question

Over 300gb of space for the Microsoft SQL Server folder

Benedict Osvaldo 1

Hi everyone, I'm currently using SQL as part of my College studies, but, after a few weeks of using, I realized my Hard Disk was running a little low. So, I checked the Storage Sense, and turns out that Microsoft SQL Server is eating over 300gb of space! I checked every folder inside the Microsoft SQL Server folder and It shouldn't have even consumed more than 50gb of space. Can anyone tell me what's going on and how to fix this?

YufeiShao-msft 7,146 Reputation points

2022-04-04T05:44:14.1+00:00

Please remember to accept the answers if they helped. Your action would be helpful to other users who encounter the same issue and read this thread.

Thank you for understanding!

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YufeiShao-msft 7,146 Reputation points

2022-04-04T05:44:14.1+00:00

Please remember to accept the answers if they helped. Your action would be helpful to other users who encounter the same issue and read this thread.

Thank you for understanding!

Answer 1

Erland Sommarskog 121.9K MVP Volunteer Moderator

Your posts confirmed my suspicions. This is a known issue and it has been fixed. You should download and install Cumulative Update 15, which is the most recent CU for SQL 2019. This will stop the dumps from littering your disks.

Generally, when you install SQL Server, you should make sure that you also apply the most recent Cumulative Update, no matter which version of SQL Server you install. Microsoft issues these CU regularly, and there can be quite some important bug fixes.

Also, if you are not planning to use the Polybase feature, you could consider uninstalling it. While the CU fixes the dumps, there are still two services that creates some noise and some extra databases.

Naomi Nosonovsky 8,431 Reputation points

2022-04-03T20:07:48.213+00:00

Do I have to be a local admin to install the latest CU for my local installation?
Erland Sommarskog 121.9K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2022-04-03T21:06:06.713+00:00

If you have administrator permissions on your machine, you don't have to. A developer should, in my opinion, have admin right on his or her personal computer, but I don't think this happens in all shops. If you are not an admin, you will have to ask your IT people.

Answer 2

Erland Sommarskog 121.9K MVP Volunteer Moderator

The reason you don't find anything may be because you are not running as administrator. Some of the files are owned by service account for SQL Server.

When I want to know what is eating my disk, I usually use TreeSize Free: https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free?ca=1. Be careful to start it with "Run as administrator".

As for what might be eating your disk space, I have a hinch, but before I say anything, can you post the output of SELECT @@version?

Benedict Osvaldo 1 Reputation point

2022-04-03T15:37:24.76+00:00

Hi Erland! Thank you so much for helping me with this. I'm currently installing TreeSize, but here's the output of SELECT @@version in my SSMS!
Benedict Osvaldo 1 Reputation point

2022-04-03T15:46:07.19+00:00

I found out what's been eating up my disk space! It's Polybase's dump files, I've deleted what's inside of the dump file and now I have over 300gb of space back Thank you so much! But I'm still wondering how do I stop this from happening again? Because when I saw the dump file dates, It's been happening since I first installed SQL.

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Over 300gb of space for the Microsoft SQL Server folder

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