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Should I Shrink the C: Drive on Windows 2008 R2 running Exchange 2010

The environment is: Windows 2008 R2 running Exchange 2010.

Disk 1: Full size: 3719.99 GB
C: Drive Volume: 2047.90 GB and 100MB System Reserved
The remaining space is unallocated.

Windows Backup is failing because I can't do a full server backup. It says volume larger than _____ can not be protected.

I am thinking about shrinking the C: drive (because only 300 GB is used rest is free) and bring it down to below 2TB.

1. Would that work to fix the backup issue?

2. Would Exchange 2010 have any problem with shrinking C: drive volume?

3. What is the proper method, should I shut down exchange services and then shrink?

Simon Butler (Sembee)

Exchange will not care if the drive is shrunk. Windows will not let you if there is something in the higher bit. I am surprised the server was even built - I don't think I have ever built a server with more than 300gb for the C drive, even on SBS 2011 (which seriously chews disk space if you let it).

Do you have everything on the C drive? If so, I would shrink it as small as it can go, then create new partitions, one for the logs and one for the database. That will be a lot more efficient use of the space.

You can shutdown Exchange if you like, but it will not take long and I have done it before "hot".

Simon.

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Natty Greg

clone the bloody drive with an equal size drive, it would make the switch easy as swapping an hard drive