Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of RDNorris
RDNorris

asked on

Windows Server 2003 DC reporting low disk space on system partition even though a manual search displays 10 GB free

Our Primary DC is displaying 333mb free space on the system partition ( partitioned out at 20 GB) even though a full manual search of the partition including hidden and protected os files shows 10 GB free (that includes the page file).  I've been tracking this problem for about a month now.  I started noticing that the available space would increase to about a gig and then drop back down once every week or so leading me to think it was excessive logging from either our symantec corp or Veritas backup exec (both run on the server).  That's not the case.  Seems like this all started after enabling shadow copies on the D: data partition.  Surely that couldnt have any effect on the system partition would it?  I'm certain that shadow copies is disabled on the system partition.  Our DC is a Dell PowerEdge 1750, setup Raid 5 with 273 GB capacity. This is driving me nuts!  Any Ideas??  Thanks in advance for any help.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of MidnightOne
MidnightOne
Flag of United States of America image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Avatar of RDNorris
RDNorris

ASKER

MidnightOne...

Thanks for the quick reply!  Unfortunately that didnt resolve the problem.  I'm open to other suggestions.
Problem solved!!

This morning I revisited the local user profiles on our DC.  Viewing the size of the profiles, they were less than 600 KB (other than the admin which was 5 MB).  Just for kicks I deleted my personal profile and that of another admin which combined displayed using about 1.2 MB in space.  Instantly the drive showed 8.31 GB free.  

Turns out that a previous test of using Folder Redirection and Offline Files (redirecting the My Documents folder) on a few of our admin accounts caused it.  Evidently during the test period, we logged on to the DC and redirected our files over which were made available offline.  It's strange how I couldnt find these files when I conducted my search, even when drilling down through the profiles manually.  What really through me off was that each profiled displayed less than a MB in size when viewed under system properties.  I'm sure there is a good tech article out there somewhere about this.

MidnightOne thanks for getting thinking about profiles again!  
RDNorris:

No worries. Profiles seem to the be leading devourer of drive space, second only to Windows Backup in the hands of semi-literate users. ;-)

MidnightOne