# Freeing space on Windows Server 2008 R2



## gib88 (Aug 18, 2005)

Hello,

We are having an issue with disk space being used up on our Windows Server 2008 R2 machine (with SP 1). I've traced the bulk of the space being used to C:\System\WinSxS. My research tells me this is an a system folder that can build up over time. It builds up with every Windows Update. I'm told NOT to just delete things from this folder as it is an important system folder that affects proper Windows functionality.

However, my research also tells that I can clean SOME of the contents of this folder by running Disk Cleanup. In Disk Cleanup, I check "Windows Update Cleanup", and click OK. However, that does nothing. WinSxS is taking up just as much space after this as before.










On the other hand, I think this problem goes deeper than just WinSxS taking up space. Every time I'm able to free up some space, it gets used up again. For example, I had a database backup that was taking up 130MB. I deleted that and then installed Desktop Experience (which I'm told is needed to get Disk Cleanup on Windows Server 2008 R2). After that, only 16MB were available on the C: drive. It's possible that Desktop Experience actually uses 114MB but that seems like a lot. Furthermore, only a few seconds after I saw the 16MB on the C: drive, I check again and say 0 bytes available.
Then I was able to get the "Windows Update Cleanup" available in Disk Cleanup which said it could free up 2.5GB. So I checked it and ran Disk Cleanup. When I checked the C: drive, it said there was only 2.3MB of space left. Then I checked again after a few seconds and 0 bytes were left.

Now whenever I run Disk Cleanup, it seems to have no effect on any folders, even with everything checked. (I'm running it from a command prompt with Administrative priveleges: cleanmgr /sageset:65535 & cleanmgr /sagerun:65535).

There seems to be something taking up free space whenever it can. I'm not sure if it's WinSxS or not.

I would very much appreciate if someone could help me troubleshoot this issue.


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## lochlomonder (Jul 24, 2015)

I'm truly surprised the server hasn't fallen over due to lack of disk space. If possible, I would recommend downloading and running WinDirStat on the server, to give you an idea of what's consuming the disk space.

Is this a physical or virtual server?


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## gib88 (Aug 18, 2005)

It's a virtual server with only 30GB!


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

Well there's your problem, that's simply too little space. You will need to add more space to it in the hypervisor and then expand the partition, a realistic minimum is 64GB if no data is being stored on the C drive.


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## srhoades (May 15, 2003)

If there is not enough free space it won't cleanup the Windows update database. Run cc cleaner first. Then see if there is enough free space to run the system cleanup.


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## lochlomonder (Jul 24, 2015)

I agree entirely with Triple6. That's way too small for a server volume and you should expand it. This may take a little while to provision the extra space via the hypervisor, but it'll make your life a lot easier in the long run.

Is this just a data server or do you run any roles or services on it, e.g. WSUS, Active Directory Domain Services, DNS, etc?


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