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How to increase Windows Server SBS 2011 C Drive
I have a Windows SBS 2011 server with raid drives. The person who set it up created 3 volumes on the raid array with the C drive partitioned with 120GB, the D drvie partitioned with 900GB and the X drive partitioned with 40GB. There is 60GB left over, but it's at the end. I am almost out of space on the C drive and need to expand it, but as we probably all know, I can't extend a partition that doesn't have the free space to the right of that partition. I downloaded AOMEI Partition Assistant Lite to allow me to use that free space, but I am not sure how to use the software to do this and I don't want to lose data. So... Any thoughts on how to get the 60GB extended onto my C drive?
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I agree with Lee. If you haven't been installing any new software or roles on the server, the C drive should not continually be using up space inadvertently. SBS is an animal in itself and databases should be stored on another drive (other than C) - logs as well. WSUS can take up a ton of space - especially if it is not cleaned up frequently. Exchange is another hog because users absolutely love mass emails to the entire company with large attachments (they haven't figured out that's what a file server is for). Haha.
ASKER
What about VSS usage are you referring? Do you mean backing up files to the C drive? If so, no. We have a NAS to backup to.
Exchange Databases are on the D drive
Exchange Logs are on the D drive.
WSUS data is on its own partition.
SBSMonitoring is on and taking up about 11GB or 12GB of storage on the C drive.
I have not checked IIS logs
I have not moved the pagefile off the C drive.
I haven't checked A/V (Symantec EndPoint).
I haven't checked Backup Exec to see if if's creating catalogs.
I am not sure I can free up enough space by cleaning some things up on the drive and I have 60GB unused, so I would love to create a cushion. I am open to any recommendations to change things on the C drive so that things are cleaner and run more efficiently, but I would like to know how I can use at least part of the 60GB to keep things for becoming a problem down the road.
Exchange Databases are on the D drive
Exchange Logs are on the D drive.
WSUS data is on its own partition.
SBSMonitoring is on and taking up about 11GB or 12GB of storage on the C drive.
I have not checked IIS logs
I have not moved the pagefile off the C drive.
I haven't checked A/V (Symantec EndPoint).
I haven't checked Backup Exec to see if if's creating catalogs.
I am not sure I can free up enough space by cleaning some things up on the drive and I have 60GB unused, so I would love to create a cushion. I am open to any recommendations to change things on the C drive so that things are cleaner and run more efficiently, but I would like to know how I can use at least part of the 60GB to keep things for becoming a problem down the road.
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If things are configured correctly, 60GB of free space on a boot partition is plenty - unless you plan on installing more apps to the boot drive. Have you already run into a space issue where C ran out of space and crashed the server?
ASKER
I have 32GB on the server and the pagefile is 32GB. I can move this to the D drive, but should I make the initial size 48GB (1.5 x RAM)? What should max size be? Since the pagefile doesn't need fault tolerance, is it always recommended to move it off the OS partition?
I know the recommended setup for servers used to be to have a 3 channel RAID card and have the OS on RAID1, the Logs on another RAID1, and the data on RAID5 or greater. How is it recommended now if your building a new server so that everything is as fast as possible?
Also, SBSMonitoring is about 12GB or 13GB. Is this typical? Seems really large. How can I get that down in size?
I know the recommended setup for servers used to be to have a 3 channel RAID card and have the OS on RAID1, the Logs on another RAID1, and the data on RAID5 or greater. How is it recommended now if your building a new server so that everything is as fast as possible?
Also, SBSMonitoring is about 12GB or 13GB. Is this typical? Seems really large. How can I get that down in size?
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I followed the blog for SBS monitoring, but I am not seeing the same thing on a SBS 2011 server. If I open Server Management consle, I can't navigate to 'Monitoring and Reporting' as I don't see it. I ended up following the instuctions at:
http://blog.korteksolutions.com/the-sbsmonitoring-database-is-nearing-maximum-size-on-sbs-2008/
to get rid of the old database and use a new one. Not sure if this will keep any existing reporting I had setup or not, but I did keep the old database. Can you tell me how to get to 'Monitoring and Reporting' on an SBS 2011 server?
I am now a little more worried about moving the pagefile off of the C drive as I don't want to limit my ability to get a full memory dump, even though I have never needed to and I have working on Windows Servers since the NT days. Just nice to know I can if I need to. This still brings me back to wanting to take my 120GB partition and extend it to 180GB using the unused 60GB available. Any thoughts using AOMEI Partition Assistant Lite? I have never used this program before, but it's free and sounds like it is supposed to do the job. Otherwise, any recommendations on partition software for a Windows SBS 2011 server?
http://blog.korteksolutions.com/the-sbsmonitoring-database-is-nearing-maximum-size-on-sbs-2008/
to get rid of the old database and use a new one. Not sure if this will keep any existing reporting I had setup or not, but I did keep the old database. Can you tell me how to get to 'Monitoring and Reporting' on an SBS 2011 server?
I am now a little more worried about moving the pagefile off of the C drive as I don't want to limit my ability to get a full memory dump, even though I have never needed to and I have working on Windows Servers since the NT days. Just nice to know I can if I need to. This still brings me back to wanting to take my 120GB partition and extend it to 180GB using the unused 60GB available. Any thoughts using AOMEI Partition Assistant Lite? I have never used this program before, but it's free and sounds like it is supposed to do the job. Otherwise, any recommendations on partition software for a Windows SBS 2011 server?