Why is my wsus content folder using almost 1Tb

Question

My Wsus Content folder on our Wsus server seems to take up about 99% or more of disk space no matter how much I expand the drive. I run Server cleanup wizard constantly and it seems to only free up very little space. For example originally I had 500Gb of drive space where Wsus was only leaving me with about 45Mb of free space. I upped the drive space to 800Gb and almost immediately I went from having almost 300 Gb of free space to 20 Mb of free space. Now just yesterday I upped the drive space to 1TB which somehow left me with about 75Gb of free space but then shortly afterwards the free space reduced down to 9.37Gb. I've tried freeing up disk space with other methods like disk cleanup, ccleaner and deleting all .tmp and log files but still the same thing happens, Can someone tell me what gives and how to fix this?

Answer 1

Hi @RockmanIT

If the storage is almost full, I would first run the server cleanup wizard.

To move the content to another location, try the command below:

You can move the content to another drive/location using wsusutil.exe , find this utility in C:\Program Files\Update Services\Tools\

Command:
wsusutil.exe movecontent %content path% %logfile%

%content path% : The new root for content files. The path must exist.
%logfile% : Path and name of the log file to be created.

You need to first create the directory on the new partition and then use the utility with the following example:
"wsusutil.exe movecontent U:\WSUS\ U:\wsusmove.log"

Another suggestion to fix the problem:

1. Reduce the size of the WSUSContent folder by decreasing superseded updates.
2. It will clear all sync logs accumulated over time (configurable, with default keeping the last 14 days of logs).
3. Remove all drivers from the WSUS database.
4. Remove declined updates from the WSUS database
5. Run the server cleanup wizard.
6. Last but most importantly, it will run the recommended maintenance script on the real SQL database.

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Answer 2

For consideration:

Ref: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-server-update-services/manage/the-server-cleanup-wizard?source=recommendations

"If updates are approved using an autoapproval rule, they could remain in an Approved state and won't be removed by The Server Cleanup wizard. To remove autoapproved updates that are in an Approved state, the WSUS Admin must at minimum manually set the approval status of superseded updates to Not Approved. Manually setting approval status of superseded updates to Not Approved make the updates eligible for declination by the Server Cleanup wizard. The Server Cleanup wizard ensures a newer update is approved and that no client system is still reporting these updates as needed before marking the update as Declined."