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Running out of disk space on win 2000 server

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by cyberjan

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The server at this non-profit I support was installed in 2002. It is a Dell poweredge 1500sc . It has 2 mirrored hard drives on it. The C drive is only 8 gigs with only 500 mb free. The G drive is 25 gigs and has 3 gigs free. I have deleted everything I think I can on the hard drives.
And moved everything out of the c drive that I know of. This space problem happened when I upgraded Raisorsedge database. It loaded a lot more then I thought it would causing the problem.
I did not install the server, and thought the 8 gig c drive was too small to begin with.
How would you suggest I add space to the server
in a quick and easy way. Can I add a new big hard drive and use a drive imaging software to copy everything? will that work with a bigger drive? Is there programs that come with server 2000 that I could delete without causing trouble for now so it wont crash. It only has 7% free so I cant defrag it because it says it wants 15 % free to do it.
I could buy a 73 gig drive but what would be the best way to configure / copy it?
Thanks in advance for your help.

Jan

8 replies

by animatech

I agree that 8G drive is too small.
I also understand that this is a non-profit org, and probably wont want to invest more money.
Before you buy a new HDD you will need to check what is the biggest size the motherboard is supporting (And if there are any BIOS updates to it that will improve this).
I don't see any problem buying a bigger drive (That is supported by the mobo)and mirroring it.
The only other thing that I can think off is maybe getting an external drive and use it as a backup\file storage solution (You can get a very big drive for a good price).
As with this I am not sure if server2000 will recognize the whole drive or if you will have to partition it so the server will see a few of them - Might be a good idea to check before investing.
By doing this you can leave the OS on the C drive (And only the OS) partition the 2nd drive so you can mirror C with 1 partition on the 2nd drive and use the 2nd partition for the database and other frequently accessed files.
It is not the best way but hey you got to work with what is given to you :)

by cyberjan

The server has 6 bays I have 2 36 gig drives now, mirrored. I could buy a 73 gig HD for $224 or a 146 HD for 249. I could buy 2 and mirror them for $500.
Dell support didnt mention MB issues.

Or I could buy a new dell server for $599 poweredge 840 Processor Intel? Celeron? Processor 336 at 256K Cache, 2.8GHz, 533MHz FSB. But i dont think this has raid and not sure about a bay for an internal tape drive.
And i am not sure it would be any faster then my P3?????

either way, could i image the drive on a new hard drive...or would that make the hard drive partition 8 gigs on the new drive. If that is the case, could I then use something like partition magic to increase the size?
I dont think I could do it now because I only have 1/2 gig left on C. and 6 gigs left on D. But maybe I could??
I do have a tape backup which is backing up everyday. I didnt set it up but I think I am backing up everything....If that is the case could I get a new hard drive and back up the whole server with the tape backup?
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I am not sure I could reinstall the whole server from scratch since i only did this one or two times but i suppose I could try it if it is the best way to add new hard drives.
thanks
Jan
Thanks
Jan

by animatech

Depends on which tapes you have, what are their capacity, and what you are going to back up on them.
You probably can use partition magic to extend the partition.
Now some may disagree with me but i would run a full backup on the system.
Make sure I got all the required software to install.
Take off the old drive and put in the new drives in mirror RAID.
Plane my partitions and Install the OS.
Make an image.
Package the additional software and deploy it and then restore from backup.
This may take a long time but will save you time in the long run as in case you will need to change again or what ever happen all you need to do is load the image, deploy the pre-made packages and then restore from backup.

by sgt_shultz

Hi, you are supposed to be able to relocate the sysvol folder and the windows updates folder. Windows updates are pretty big and expendable imho. you can either delete the folders (thereby precluding uninstalling the updates - big dear) or you can move them. you have to tweak the registry to tell them the new location. or you could just move the existing ones and put them back if you ever need them. anyway, they are hidden folders at the root of the system drive. here is an article about if from the microsoft kb
support.microsoft.com about moving the sysvol folder. search there for other tips on dealing with your disk space problem and also the article about relocating the update folders which i cannot find right at this momemnt,sorry. i would also go to maxtor, seagate, western digital and see what they say about upgrading a drive in a server, maybe they have software that can do it...(by that i mean dup your exisiting disk to the new one)
cHow to relocate the SYSVOL tree on a domain controller that is running Windows 2000 Server or Windows Server 2003
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/842162/en-us

by cyberjan

so I reinstall programs then backup from the tape??

by cyberjan

In add and delete programs I have MS net framework 2.0 and 1.1 and hotfix 1.1 can i delete the 1.1 versions saftly?
Also i have ms baseline security analizer - I dont know what this is can i delete it?
I have MS internet sevurity and accalerator server
MS office web componets
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It is a server for a non-profit..installed by someone who cant be located. It has raisorsedge on it and when i upgraded it installed SQL Server 2005
Then it has 2005 backward compatibility
native client
setup support
vss writer
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Also in the winnt dir I have config.msi with a lot of rbf files dated years ago
and I have windows installer, and installshieldinstallation with a ton of dirs numbers under it from years ago
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can I safely delete these files?

Any other ideas about what i can delete in the c drive...
I think the uprade of RE 7 and the windows updates ate up all the space.
I have a mirrored hard drive ....so I am not sure how I can add a bigger hard drive to it.
Thanks Jan

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