What Does Vista Do With All The Disk Space?

JasX

macman wrote: »

Then he had an idea!
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/13940339.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.panoramio.com/photo/13940339&usg=__J8H2ZHLyLFlZWH1Yz0TMqbkR7hY=&h=640&w=480&sz=126&hl=en&start=2&itbs=1&tbnid=JrR5y5Cu-Ss3-M:&tbnh=137&tbnw=103&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dyacht%252Bsteve%2Bballmer%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1

pfft, behind the times again Macman?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1192640/Admiral-Abramovich-launches-300million-mega-yachtski-The-worlds-biggest-submarine.html

macman

Nothing ever changes, does it. It's all about who's got the biggest one!

spud17

Used this once before, nicked it from an article, apologies, as I can't credit anyone but

Open the Start Menu in Vista and type cmd. This will show you cmd.exe at
the top of the results. Right click on cmd.exe and choose Run as
Administrator. This will open a black window, called a DOS prompt, with
a flashing cursor.

Type:
*vssadmin list shadowstorage* and hit enter.

You will now see exactly how much System Restore is using, and what the
maximum Vista may use.
vssadmin list view

In this example I've already made a change limiting System Restore to
5GB. To change your maximum we need to use a slightly different form of
the same command.

*vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=X: /On=Y: /Maxsize=ZGB*

* X = the drive you wish to change
* Y = the drive you wish to have it stored on
* Z = the maximum size you wish Vista to use
o Z can be MB or GB with a minimum of 300MB. I suggest you
stay with GB(gigabytes) for ease of use.

If we wanted to reduce the space allotted to System Restore to 10GB on
drive c: we would use the following command:

*vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=C: /On=C: /Maxsize=10GB*

/If we had two drives and wished to put System Restore on the second
drive (drive ) we would use the following:/

/*vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=C: /On=D: /Maxsize=10GB*/

After further investigation I've learned that Vista *WILL NOT* allow
storage on another partition. Vista will only store shadow copies on the
same volume! This means that both the For and On switch must point to
the same volume!

So let's give it a try. I'm going to increase the space allotted System
Restore from 5GB to 10GB on my C: drive:
vssadmin command example

After pressing Enter Vista performs the command and let's me know it was
successful.
vssadmin successfull

Now using the vssadmin list shadowstorage command we originally used we
can see the change.
vssadmin updated

Let's have a look at some of the Pros and Cons of using this command:

*PRO*

* Increased free space on drive
* Less drive fragmentation due to System Restore resizing

*CON*

* Less System Restore points
* Fewer previous versions of files

So what do you do? For casual computer users I suggest that you not
change anything. If you are a power user with huge hard drives I suggest
you set a size to prevent Vista from dynamically resizing on it's own. I
think a goog rule of thumb is 10% rounded to the nearest 5GB.

Drive Size - Shadow Copy Size
80GB - 10GB
100GB - 10GB
120GB - 15GB
160GB - 15GB
200GB - 20GB
250GB - 25GB
etc.

So there you have it, System Restore and Shadow Copy in a nutshell.

macman

Thanks spud but I believe that this can only be done in Vista Ultimate-not in Vista Home Premium?

spud17

macman wrote: »

Thanks spud but I believe that this can only be done in Vista Ultimate-not in Vista Home Premium?

I'm 99.99% sure I've done it in Home Premium.

Have you actually tried it?

Must go now, need sleeeeeeep.

More reading

http://www.viztaview.com/tips/37-tips/63-shadow-volume-copy.html