Vista Tutorial - System Restore - disk space

Used Shadow Storage space: 9.785 GB
Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 10.026 GB
Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 10.412 GB

that's sounds big

Hi Sound_Asleep,

What is the size of your hard drive? By default this is 15% of the hard drive's size. It looks like you are using the space though with 9.785 GB used so far.

I suppose it depends on how many Restore Points you like to keep on hand to go back to. Check to see how many System Restore Points you have now. Method One in this tutorial will show you how to. Be sure to check Show Restore points older than 5 days. Plus, do not actually do a system restore.

System Restore - How to


You can then adjust the storage size up or down depending on if you want less or more restore points.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

60 GB C Drive
5GB D Drive

Hi Brink/Shawn:

Not sure how you want to be addressed.

In the tutorial above, I had a couple questions.

1. In same command prompt window from above, type for EX:
vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=C: /On=C: /Maxsize=3GB and press Enter.
NOTE:
/For= Your main drive (EX: C: )
/On= Destination drive of backup
Maxsize= Size you want to limit it to, # + GB or MB

I'm not clear on what /For and /On means. Does this mean that if I chose a different drive for /On, it will allocate space on that drive instead of the drive with my OS (the C drive)? Or is it referring to a backup of the restore points, meaning there will be a copy?

I was set to restore to previous point and found that I only had 8 restore points going back 5 days. I wondered where the earlier ones were and did a search and read about the 5 day check box but I don't have any 5 day check box. I then found this forum thread and ran the command line and it shows:

Used: 6.149 GB
Allocated: 6.367 GB
Maximum: 8.587

If the OS had allocated the maximum, I might have been able to go back further to where I wanted to. As it is, it looks like I bumped up against the allocated space and my older restore points were deleted. I am guessing that the fact they only go back 5 days is a co-incidence and that there are none older than that because I hit the allocated limit.

So my 2nd question is why wasn't the allocated space set to the maximum?

Hi Cabrón,

Welcome to Vista Forums.

You have it correct. The /On= is for what drive the restore points and shadow copies are stored on. The /For= is for the drive Vista is installed on.

The Allocated size is controlled by Vista and should auto adjust up to the MAX size if needed if the size of the restore point doesn't exceed the MAX size.

If you are wanting more restore points, then increasing the MAX size will give you more storage space for them. You might double the size to 17.174GB to see how that works for you.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Thanks for the explanation, Shawn.

I am a little confused about shadow copies. Are they created as part of the restore point or are they made every time a file changes. I was envisioning 2 scenarios; one where I am changing a large spreadsheet several times a day and another where an application program was changing a file. For example, every time you update headers with a newsreader client, the file storing that header data would be changed, but you wouldn't necessarily want to keep previous versions of that file.

Sorry, I don’t' know much about this "previous version of a file" feature since this is the first I've heard about it.

If shadow copies are made apart from the restore point creation process, are the latest copies then rolled into the next restore point that is created and the in-between copies deleted, assuming such exist?

Cabrón,


They are sorta intermangled together. Previous Versions will save copies of the file until it runs out of the MAX space. It will then start deleting the oldest copy of the file as a newer copy is added like restore points. System Restore uses these same Previous Versions, but instead are all grouped by date for the whole system instead of individual files. They work separately but use the same stored information basically, which affects both of them.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

I tried to change my storage to other drives where I have more space, but the command didn't work for me.

Cabrón,

You can change the drive location by checking the drive you want them stored on instead in the System Properties window. Step 6 in this tutorial will show you how to if needed.

System Restore

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Hey,
eh sorry when i type in the command line(in step 1) i get "No items found that satisfy the query"
does that mean i have no shadow copy space at all? or have i just done something very stupid?