System Restore - disk space

How to Change the System Restore Disk Space Usage Amount in Vista ​

   Information

By default Vista allocates 15% of your selected hard drive volume to storing System Restore points after installation. If System Restore is turned on much later, it may only allocate a minimum of 30% of the available free space instead. When the allocated space fills up with restore points, System Restore will delete the older restore points to make room for the new ones. System Restore needs at least 300 MB allocated to it to run, and will not run on a hard drive smaller than 1 GB. In the Vista Business and Ultimate versions, this area is also where backup copies of deleted or changed files are stored and made available through the Previous Versions feature (Shadow Copy). For more information about the Vssadmin command, see: Microsoft Technet: Vssadmin

   Note

System Restore needs to be turned on to be able to change it's storage size. To turn on System Restore and select what drives Vista is to create restore points for, see: How to Turn System Restore On or Off in Vista

   Warning

• If you shrink the available storage space for a selected drive, Vista will kick out the system restore points and backups on a first-in, first-out basis. The oldest restore point will be deleted as the new one is saved when out of available max space. This will, of course, leave you with fewer restore options.
• If you dual boot with Windows XP, then everytime you start in XP the System Restore Points and all except the most recent Complete PC Backup files in Vista get deleted. For how, see: How to Stop System Restore Points from being Deleted in Vista when Dual Booting with XP

   Tip

If you just want to free up some space, then you can run Disk Cleanup instead.

STEP ONE

How to See the Current Allocated System Restore Size

1. Open a elevated command prompt.​

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2. If prompted by UAC, click on Continue.​

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3. In the elevated command prompt, type vssadmin list shadowstorage and press Enter. (See screenshots below)​

NOTE: This will give your the details on the Used, Allocated, and Maximum spaces of Shadow Copies for the available disks that you selected to have restore points created for in step 6 here: How to Turn System Restore On or Off in Vista. The left screenshot is for just one drive selected, and the right screenshot is for two drives (C & D ) selected.​

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Result	Description
Used	This is the amount currently used on the hard disk.
Allocated	This is the amount that it has reserved from the hard disk at this time.
Maximum	This is the maximum amount it will allocate and use from the hard disk.

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STEP TWO

How to Change the Maximum System Restore Size

NOTE: If you disable or enable System Restore for a selected drive, the original default values will be set back and the restore points will be deleted. For how, see: How to Disable or Enable System Restore in Vista.

1. In same elevated command prompt window from above, type for EX:​

WARNING: If you change the MAX size to a smaller size than the current Used size shown in METHOD ONE above, then the older restore points will be deleted to adjust to the new size. Nothing will happen to the restore points if you make the MAX size larger than the current Used size shown in METHOD ONE above.​

A) For the listed C: drive, type the command below and press Enter.​

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vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=C: /On=C: /Maxsize=[B][COLOR=red]3GB[/COLOR][/B]

B) For the listed D: drive, type the command below and press Enter.​

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vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=D: /On=D: /Maxsize=[B][COLOR=red]3GB[/COLOR][/B]

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   Note

See the screenshots below step 5 in OPTION ONE above under the Shadow Copy Storage association line for each drive listed.​

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Command	Description
/For=	The For volume: listed. (Ex: C or D above)
/On=	The Shadow Copy Storage volume: listed. (Ex: C or D above)
/Maxsize=	What you want to limit the maximum storage size of Shadow Copies (restore points) to. For example, # + GB or MB (Ex: 3GB or 3MB) This must be 1MB or larger.

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2. You will get a Successfully resized the shadow copy storage association message.​

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3. If not, repeat step 1.​

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4. If yes, then check with STEP ONE above to confirm the change for the selected drive.​

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5. Close the elevated command prompt when done.​

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That's it,
Shawn



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Related Tutorials

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• How to Create a System Restore Shortcut in Vista
• How to Create a Create System Restore Point Shortcut in Vista
• How to Create a System Restore Point in Vista
• How to Undo the Last System Restore in Vista
• How to Do a System Restore in Vista
• How to Turn System Restore On or Off in Vista
• How to Use Disk Cleanup in Vista
• How to Restore Previous Versions of a File and Folder in Vista
• How to Stop System Restore Points from being Deleted in Vista when Dual Booting with XP
• How to Change the Automatic System Restore Point Settings in Vista Task Scheduler
• How to Enable or Disable Create Vista System Restore Point when New Device Driver is Installed
• How to Enable or Disable Create Vista System Restore Point when a Application is Installed

 

[Sound_Asleep]

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

 

[Brink]

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.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/76905-system-restore-how.html


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

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Sound_Asleep]

60 GB C Drive
5GB D Drive


:D

 

[cabrón]

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?

 

[Brink]

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

 

[cabrón]

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?

 

[Brink]

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

 

[cabrón]

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

[URL="http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/4094/changingsystemrestoresejw0.jpg"][URL="http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/4094/changingsystemrestoresejw0.jpg"][/URL][/URL]

 

[Brink]

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.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/66971-system-restore.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[eejit]

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?

 

[Brink]

Hi eejit, and welcome to Vista Forums.

Check to make sure that you have System Restore turned on and that these Services set as:


Volume Shadow Copy
This service is set to Started and Manual by default.

Microsoft Shadow Copy Provider
This service is set to Started and Manual by default.

For how if needed, see: How to Disable or Enable Vista Services with an Advice Guide

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[eejit]

Brilliant thanks worked perfectly, best tech website i have ever seen!

 

[Brink]

Your welcome eejit.

Shawn

 

[nipo]

I tried to change partition like this: vssadmin Resize Shadow Storage /For=C: /On=D: /Maxsize=5GB, but system does not allowed me to select another partition, but just C.
So, how can I set another partition (exp. D:\ for shadow files for Restore points?

Another questions, I have back up entire system and I like it restore just Restore points?

How Can I do that?



What’s the name of restore ponts on disk and where is location?

Tx

 

[Brink]

Hello Nipo, and welcome to Vista Forums.

Step 6A in this tutorial will show you how to select another driver letter to be used for restore points instead.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/66971-system-restore.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[heph]

Hi Shawn
Please help with my disk space problem. I have tried to resize the space for the restor epoints but still I am not getting the solution out of the hard disk problem.
Thanks, heph

 

[Brink]

Hi Heph,

What is the problem that you are having with your hard drive?


Shawn

 

[heph]

Hi Shawn,

I have lenovo R61 with vista installed. When I run windirstat on drive C, the total space on c is 67.9GB but then windirstat indicates that 44.3GB is unknown.
thxs, heph

 

[heph]

Hi Shawn,
The hard disk is filled up with I do not know what yet I have not installed many programs on it. I try to store my data on an external hard disk up I keep getting all these messages that my disk space on C is used up.
Thxs, Heph

 

[Brink]

Heph,

I found this about a feature called ThinkVantage that may be what is using the space. I'm not sure how it works, but your computers' documentation should help explain it and hopefully how to disable it.

Lenovo - Innovation - Rescue and Recovery

Hope this helps,
Shawn