Re: How do I upgrade System drive?
Pegasus (MVP) wrote:
> "leew [MVP]" <useContactPage@LWComputing.dot.com> wrote in message
> news:4842fb3f$0$15180$607ed4bc@cv.net...
>> Jerry K wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I need to install a bigger system drive on my Server 2003 DC. However,
>>> the software I have, Ghost, does not run under Server OSes. How are
>>> others upgrading their drives?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Jerry
>>>
>> Why?
>>
>> How large is the C: drive?
>>
>> What's using up the space?
>>
>> I'll tell you, in my experience, the CHEAPER, FASTER way to do this - move
>> things off the C: drive that don't necessarily belong. Often people seem
>> to think 10-15 GB is too little... I say it's more than enough if the
>> server is setup appropriately.
>>
>> -Lee
>
> I beg to disagree. In my experience, 10 GBytes is very tight,
> 15 GBytes is reasonable and 20 GBytes is good. With 10 GBytes,
> even if you keep the Exchange Information Store and the paging
> file on a different drive, you have to keep on juggling things in
> order to prevent the system drive from overfilling. IMHO a robust
> server installation is one that does not need constant attention.
>
>
I've got SBS servers with 12 GB hard drives and I don't give them
constant attention - I check them maybe every six months.
Please, elaborate on what takes up space that you feel like you need
that much space. The C: drive should contain primarily 3 things of
consequence - Documents and Settings, Program Files, and Windows. Now,
this is a server... so you're not adding programs to it frequently.
The user profiles - there shouldn't be that many user profiles nor
should there be much in said user profiles - certainly no Archive PST
and no downloads on the desktop and no documents in My Documents. So
what is going to take up space in Documents and Settings. I submit,
Documents and Settings should be 500 MB AT MOST.
Next, Program Files. What's in there? Maybe an AV solution - maybe.
Exchange if it's an Exchange Server. SQL if it's a SQL server. Some
miscellaneous client utilities. In most cases, this should not take up
more than 2 GB - probably less. And again, it's a server - what are you
adding to this so frequently that it's filling up space?
Finally, Windows itself. Check the size of it on most of your servers.
For me - and mostly on SBS systems - the folder is 6-7 GB. And that's
without cleaning out some of the old patches and without moving the
ServicePackFiles and DLLCache to another partition. Personally, once
every 6 months or so, I remove some of the old (9 months and older)
patch backups ($NTUninstall...) folders. But that's once every six
months... hardly constant attention.
Now, unless my math is off, .5+2+7=9.5 GB. So yes, 10 GB CAN be on the
slim side... And if I'm setting up a new server TODAY, I'm making the
partition 15 GB. But I can survive with MINIMAL maintenance (and some
one time modifications) in a 10 GB partition as well.
Now, a terminal server is another matter - that I would absolutely use
the largest C: drive possible.
If I've missed something, please let me know...
I was going to post this depending on what the response was on actual C:
drive size, but you might want to review this link - I'm always looking
for corrections/other perspectives.
http://www.lwcomputing.com/tips/static/bootdrivesize.asp
-Lee