Can't figure out where 90GB have gone

[shadowsoal]

So I recently built a computer, and set it up with two Samsung Spinpoint 1TB Hard Drives in a RAID 1 array. Ever since my install I've noticed an ever growing amount of unaccounted space in the Local Disk C: Properties' pie chart. After just installing the OS, which should have been ~16GB it was showing I had around 31GB used, and now that I've got around 83GB of data on the machine it says I've got 172GB used.

My initial thought is that utilities like the "Local Disk C: Properties" do not understand that it's in a RAID 1 array and is reporting all the data twice, because utilities like TreeSize only report 83GB of space used. But I want to confirm that (A) my hypothesis is correct and (B) that it won't cause issues such as if I fill up half the disk, and windows now thinks it's full, and won't let me use the other 500GB.

Can anyone shed any light on this, for all I know I just set something up wrong and there is actually ~90GB of wasted space on my HDD right now.

[bigdogchris]

If you have Vista it's caused by Shadow Storage. Go to a command prompt and type in

vssadmin list shadowstorage

Look at the used shadow storage space.

Now type in vssadmin resize shadowstorage /for=c: /on=c: /maxsize=20GB

That will limit the size that it can use for your system restore (and shadow storage for file rollback if you have Business/Ultimate) to 20GB, which is about 3-4 days worth depending on how much you have installed. You can also change the /on= command to another drive letter if you want to store your system restore on another drive. Or you can just turn off system restore but I like it on for shadow storage plus I've had to use it a few times.

[shadowsoal]

>vssadmin list shadowstorage
vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001-2005 Microsoft Corp.

Error: You don't have the correct permissions to run this command. Please run t
his utility from a command
window that has elevated administrator privileges.


So how do I get higher permissions...

[bigdogchris]

>vssadmin list shadowstorage
vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001-2005 Microsoft Corp.

Error: You don't have the correct permissions to run this command. Please run t
his utility from a command
window that has elevated administrator privileges.


So how do I get higher permissions...Sorry. Type in cmd in search and when it pops up in the start menu, right click and run as admin. (I have UAC turned off which doesn't make me elevate so I didn't think about that).

Also, check out the other stuff I added to the previous post.

If that UAC prompt annoys you or causes problems with some games/applications, you can turn it off. If you run older games/applications on Vista, you may need to disable UAC and use compatibility mode to get them to run.

[shadowsoal]

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6001]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>vssadmin list shadowstorage
vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001-2005 Microsoft Corp.

Shadow Copy Storage association
For volume: (C:)\\?\Volume{f096bfbe-e5b3-11dd-aa06-806e6f6e6963}\
Shadow Copy Storage volume: (C:)\\?\Volume{f096bfbe-e5b3-11dd-aa06-806e6f6e69
63}\
Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 90.971 GB
Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 93.801 GB
Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 139.726 GB


This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you. I just wanted to ensure that I hadn't installed my RAID array incorrectly, if I find that I'm getting close to filling up 800GB on this disk, and the shadowstorage is getting in the way, I'll turn it down a bunch.

[bigdogchris]

Right now it's set to use %15 of your total disk space as shadow storage. If you have less than 30% disk space remaining it will start scaling down. So it will eventually eat up 150GB (140GB as seen in your report) of your 1TB drive. I don't like it using that much because I want my apps/games to be near the edge of the disk.

[shadowsoal]

What do you mean near the edge of the disk, does shadowstorage always occupy the space on the disk closest to the edge?

[Sojuuk]

What do you mean near the edge of the disk, does shadowstorage always occupy the space on the disk closest to the edge?

god i hope not, thats the fastest part.

[AVT]

Sorry. Type in cmd in search and when it pops up in the start menu, right click and run as admin. (I have UAC turned off which doesn't make me elevate so I didn't think about that).

Also, check out the other stuff I added to the previous post.

If that UAC prompt annoys you or causes problems with some games/applications, you can turn it off. If you run older games/applications on Vista, you may need to disable UAC and use compatibility mode to get them to run.

You don't need to disable UAC to run games or older apps. Just don't install them under /Program Files(x86)/ - or, if you know how, change permissions for the directory to allow write access.

[tombew]

Thanks for the info you provided in this thread. Much appreciated!

I think I will set up a partition for this at the end of a disk to hold this - any obvious drawbacks (assuming appropriate size)?

[BEST JD TCR]

this happen to me as well but in xp, it was a 32gb tmp file in that location
A 32.5GB file in User/LocalSettings/Temp called NMF145.tmp (http://forums.cnet.com/5208-4_102-0.html?threadID=275058)