System Volume Information grew to 1.25Gb. How to stunt its growth? 1

[1LUV1T]

Hi, I am doing a server cleanup on our Domain Controller. Using TreeSize (nice, free app), I was able to determine that my System Volume Information folder is very large as compared to the last time I checked it (months ago). The folder itself seems empty but going to START -> RUN -> "sysvol" I see domain, staging, staging areas, sysvol. Is there a way to determine what is safe for deletion within sysvol?

 

[itsp1965]

Do NOT delete any of these folders as they are standard to the SYSVOL folder. It's possible that FRS is causing the folder to grow.
Take a look at this MS KB note

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315457

 

[1LUV1T]

Ugh not worth the effort after reading the KB.
Thanks for the info any way.

 

[58sniper]

You're talking about two different things. sysvol is a key folder replicated amongst DCs, and includes things like login scripts, GPOs, etc.

System Volume Information has nothing to do with that. System Volume Information contains things like system restore info, VSS info, etc. See

http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2003/11/20/55764.aspx

for more info.

Pat Richard
Microsoft Exchange MVP
Contributing author The Complete Reference: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007

 

[1LUV1T]

Here is what solved my problem. Yes, 58Sniper was correct about System Volume Information folder containing things like VSS. The problem was that I had VSS enabled over a year ago, and set a limit of about 150-200gb. It wasn't very effective for me and caused issues with BackupExec so I had disabled it. Unfortunatey all its cache/temp files remained.

After digging around yesterday, i decided the only way to get rid of the old VSS junk without manual deletion in System Volume folder was to enable VSS again, set limit to a smaller amount (50gb) then disable it. This in turn, deleted the excess files it was holding from a year ago.