Volume Shadow Copy VSS disabled but still running

[juchestyle]

Hey Everyone,

Has anyone run into the issue where on a Windows 2008 Server, Volume Shadow copy is disabled but it is still using and taking up more space?  I have found both virtual and physical servers exhibiting this scenario and I have done some searching but I am not running into anything I can find that describes this issue.

Right click on the c drive and  Configure Shadow Copies...

In the attached screenshot you will see that the service is disabled but it is using 48 gigs of shadow copy space.  Often you might look at a server and can't figure out where the space went to.  If you highlight all the files on a drive and go to properties it won't add up the amount of space used.  It is ghost space, or invisible space.

Any ideas?

Thank you,

Matthew

[hicksj]

Hey Matthew!

We're seeing the same thing.  I have intentionally enabled Shadow Copies on some file servers which is fantastic, but just this morning one of our tech's noticed the System Volume Information folder on a few 2008 servers (that do not have Shadow Copies enabled) using a large chunk of disk space.

We're not sure why this is happening at this point... The systems are recent deployments.  We have a single share on the C: volumes, for TSM backup agent reporting.  That got me thinking, "what version are we using?"  So far, any running the newer 6.3.2 client have the issue.  Older systems running 5.x clients do not show any shadow space being used.  Checking to see if that has anything to do with this...

Did you ever figure out your root cause?  I'm thinking of setting the Shadow limit to 0, but I'd like to know specifically what's generating this data...

Cheers,

J

[JasonPearceAtRi]

My solution was to just go to the volume Properties > Shadow Copies > Settings > and change Maximum Size from No Limit to a 5 GB limit (or a size you prefer). The folder size was reduced right after I made the change.

[rvopat]

I had this same problem just starting the last couple days.  setting the limit took care of the drive space issue, however i noticed in the Task Scheduler that there window that there is a vssadmin task to run at 7 am and 12 pm every week day.  not sure when this was setup or created but i know i never did it.  i am currently checking to see if it is enabled on any of my other servers.