Clean Up Your SBS 2003 Server

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Many people have space crunches on their SBS 2003 servers. It's common to see 12GB (Dell OEM) or even 8GB C: partitions on SBS 2003 Servers. It can be a challenge keeping that C: system drive from overflowing, with drastic consequences. I HATE getting an Alert email from my SBS Server telling me there's only 200MB of free space left on C:!

The biggest space grabbers on an SBS Server include:
a) The Exchange Stores
b) The Exchange Log Files
c) The System Page File
d) The Volume Shadow Copy Files
e) User Shared Folders
f) Old "Uninstall" files for Windows Updates

And the Exchange Stores, Exchange Logs, User Shared Folders, and Uninstall Files keep growing! Ask somebody what happens to the c:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\MDBData\ folder if you don't make frequent backups of your Server! It'll grow ever larger until there's zero free space on your partition!

It's not all that difficult to make more space on C:, without the need for complex re-partitioning of your drives. Microsoft even provides a complete "how-to" here:

http://tinyurl.com/9k7ve

Here's what I did in a couple of hours of work for one client. He went from around 400MB of free space on C: to 3.8GB of free space. This was on a standard Dell OEM SBS 2003 installation. And, since I moved his User Shared Folders and his Exchange Stores and Log Files, he'll STILL have (around) 3.8GB free six months from now.

1) Moved the Exchange Server Log Files, Public Store, and Private Store to:
d:\program files\exchsrvr\mbdata
Email mailbox sizes and incoming email will have no effect on your C: drive anymore.

2) Moved the Volume Shadow Copy of C: (which is done twice a day and allows recovery of accidentally deleted and overwritten data files by users) to D:
Volume Shadow Copies, by default, use 10% of your drive space and makes copies twice a day by default.

3) Enabled Volume Shadow Copy of D:
Many don't have this feature turned on. By default, this uses 10% of your D: drive and makes copies twice a day by default. This can probably be safely set much smaller. Shadow copies will allow instant recovery of accidentally deleted or overwritten shared files on your D: drive.

4) Moved the User folders (their redirected "My Documents" folders) to d:\Users Shared Folders.
This will allow User folders to grow without using space on C:

Note that this is a pretty complex operation. Be sure to follow Microsoft's directions EXACTLY. And DO NOT rename the "share name" of your new Users Shared Folders! Renaming it will make a mess!

ALL NEW FILES SAVED BY USERS IN THEIR "MY DOCUMENTS" FOLDER SHOULD BE AUTOMATICALLY REDIRECTED TO D:\USERS SHARED FOLDERS\xxxxx", WHERE XXXXX IS THEIR USERNAME.

===>>> This should be checked to be sure it's working properly! When somebody saves a file in their "My Documents" folder, the files should be redirected to his "d:\Users Shared Folders" directory. PLEASE VERIFY THIS IS WORKING!

I kept the original versions of all the redirected files are in c:\Users Shared Folders for a while, just in case.... I also checked the copy operation for errors and verified that the c:\Users Shared Folders and the d:\Users Shared Folders contained identical numbers of files and directories.

5) Modified the Disk Space Quotas for some users. By default, any new users will be allowed 1GB of space on D: or C:
You may want to modify these values.

If necessary, you can easily move the "c:\Client Apps" folder, too. This is an easy operation. I'm not sure that moving the Pagefile.sys file is a good idea. Do this only as a last, desperate, measure.

The Windows Update Uninstall Files (in c:\Windows), are not huge, but you can safely delete all by the very latest files. You can CERTAINLY delete anything previous to the last Service Pack.

So, stop fighting the space crunch. Clean up that SBS Server and stop having to worry about overflowing your C: drive.