More an OS question regarding free space but...

[Martin Dettbarn]

I thought I'd throw it in here regardless as I'm quite stumped.

Hoping perhaps someone here might be able to help me figure out where my space went on my server.

Details:
Proliant 350 g4
4 x 36gb drives in one RAID 5 array = ~108gb usable space
Windows Server 2003 (no service pack) installed as a member server
Exchange 2003 Std. Service Pack 1
Windows reports 60GB used of my 108 total with 48gb remaining

I was pretty surprised when I noticed this. My details are as follows when
I audit the drive space.
If I just select all files in the C: folder and do properties, it comes up
as 16GB used space. Yes I have the view set to show all hidden and OS
files.

Windows Folder = 2gb
Page File = 2gb
Exchange Folder = 10gb (may max up to 14gb near the end of the day before
Full backup runs and logs are flushed)
Remainder of stuff in c:\program files = ~230mb
Misc. Install Folder I have on the drive (exch srv, service pack, os image)
= 1.7gb
That's it.

So this comes up pretty near to the 16gb reported when I just do a select
all > properties from the root. The Proliant Management Page also reports:
64161 Used, 40014 Free of 104175 Total (Which is close to what windows is
reporting).
I forget what the default cluster size was that I used when I set the array
up, but unless I made them 5mb (sarcasm) I can't see how ~44 GB are missing
in action.

When I do a full back up on the system (veritas 9.1) the backup job is ~15 GB.

Any ideas what to check appreciated!

[Ivan Ferreira · Accepted solution]

In the root of every drive is a folder called "System Volume Information". If your drive is NTFS, the permissions on the folder are set so not even administrators can get in there (maybe tha's why you don't see the space used by this folder). What's the big secret?

The folder contains information that casual interference could cause problems with proper system functioning. Here are some of the things kept in that folder. (This list is not comprehensive.)

* System Restore points. You can disable System Restore from the "System" control panel.
* Distributed Link Tracking Service databases for repairing your shortcuts and linked documents.
* Content Indexing Service databases for fast file searches. This is also the source of the cidaemon.exe process: That is the content indexer itself, busy scanning your files and building its database so you can search for them quickly. (If you created a lot of data in a short time, the content indexer service gets all excited trying to index it.)
* Information used by the Volume Snapshot Service (also known as "Volume Shadow Copy") so you can back up files on a live system.
* Longhorn systems keep WinFS databases here.

See also:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/814594/en-us

[Martin Dettbarn]

That was it - 40 some odd GB in that folder. 10 points for you! :)

[Martin Dettbarn]

Located in system volume information folder.