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Hello,
One of my environments has a System Volume Information directory that is growing and taking up all the disk space. I really have no use for this directory and wanted to see how I could go about removing this directory? I do not use any windows system restores at all. Use metalgoix backup tool for backups/restores and just not sure what this directory is for or how I can totally remove or shrink the data within.
Thanks N Advance for any help
I've performed the steps with no luck. I've run the vssadmin command to see the shadow storage copy size, and this doesn't seem to be contributing to the SVI folder size. The system is having Windows 2008 R2 OS. I also tried taking ownership of the SVI folder & assigning Full Access to my account to delete the files. No Luck.
Any another way to clear/purge the files.
Thanks so much for response. So it's actually the E: directory that is the issue. This same issue is on 2 other servers. When I go to Shadow copies on each server everything is showing disabled as shown in attachment. I'm not sure where else to go to get this directory cleared, I am unable to see the directory using windows explorer. Thanks again for your help
You can repeat this process on all drives (**C:\ **, **D:\ **, etc.) in your environment, disable Next Run Time and also give a limit to the maximum size. It helps reduce the size of the System Volume Information folder immediately if any, even when you cannot see it from the File Explorer.
Also, the drive **E:\ ** in the screenshot seems to be a System drive that used to store logs and backup files, which I suggest you leave it as it is since the drive itself does not take that much space. It might cause unexpected problem if you shrink or delete the files within.
On Windows Server 2012, you can safely free up the space of System Volume Information folder as following:
DiskShadow.exe. Delete shadows OLDEST <BackupStorageLocation>. Exit to exit DiskShadow.exe.
Please refer to the article here for detailed information: Reduce the size of System Volume Information folder.
The System Volume Information folder is used to store system data related to system recovery service, indexing, File History feature, etc.
This folder is set to prevent everyone from accessing except the SYSTEM on drives formatted with the NTFS file system, and it will recreate itself by Windows if deleted on exFAT or FAT32-formatted drives, since the system needs it.
In normal occasions, you should leave the folder as it is. But if you need to shrink the size of the System Volume Information folder, you can navigate to Control Panel > System and Security > System > System Protection > Configure under Protection Settings, then decide whether System Restore should be enabled and how much disk space Windows uses for System Restore points.
For further and detailed information on how to shrink the size of this folder, please refer to this article: How to Clean Up “System Volume Information” Folder.
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Hi @Msdc , do you have any progress on this thread? Please feel free to let us know if you need further assistance.
Thanks for response, no luck yet. I actually don't have the "System Protection" option you mentioned. is there somewhere else I need to go? I am on windows 2012 server. thnx
Apologize for the misleading. The "System Protection" option is indeed not available on Windows Servers.
I will post the following reply in a separated Answer since it exceeds the 1000-character limit. Please see the new Answer in this thread.
Thanks so much ChelseaWu! The above steps did work. I use a 3rd party tool for backups so just confused on where the system volume directory size increase has come from on each server. Thanks again