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

---

• 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

 

[Brink]

Thanks Shawn.

Q3) Usually people only have their C: system drive with Vista on it set for restore points to be created for. Unless they have something on a E: drive that they need or want restore points for, it would be a waste of disk space.

My E: drive has11.4 GB and initially, it was almost completely empty until I turned its System Restore on. Now, it's gradually depleting the drive space. My yearning inquiries are(has always been):
1. O.K...what is on my E: drive anyway?
2. What is it backing up when it is not even being used. Furthermore, Vista has set the system drive(C: ) as the SR default.
By setting a SR for it, how does it affect my disk space? I didn't notice any change in both C: and D: drive.

Thanks again.

Bennys,

Without looking at your E: drive, I could not tell you what it is for. If you could post back a screenshot of it with what files are in it, I might be able to tell what's on it.

By setting restore points to be created for the E: drive it will use disk space to store the restore points on the E: drive. This is why it is almost full now. Turning off System Restore on the E: drive will delete all of the restore points on that drive, and you will regain the used space on it.

 

[hkancyr]

Damn, mine was using 113GB with a max of 118GB. I chopped it back to 5G.

Brink strikes again!!

 

[Brink]

Wow Hkancyr. Was that a 1 TB drive?

 

[hkancyr]

Yes. 1TB over a year or more. Nice way to grab back over 110 Gigs of space.

 

[Brink]

LOL, that would explain the large size then.

 

[ScousaJAY]

hi peoples, i resized my avaliable restore space to 3gb about 4 months ago, but upon looking today, it has gone over its limit, it is currently showing:

for: factory restore volume:

used shadow copy storage space:434.547 MB
allocated shadow copy storage space:714.859 MB
maximum shadow copy storage space:892.234 MB

for C:

used shadow copy storage space: 3.37 GB
allocated shadow copy storage space: 3.654 GB
maximum shadow copy storage space: 3 GB

the restore volume is still factory setting so i dont have to play with that one, but i still dont know why the C: drive limit has been ignored. i know i done it properly when i resized it and it has allways been less than the limit when i have checked in the past..

any1 know why this may have happend!!! ....nice 1

 

[Zareba]

I found this tutorial very informative and easy to follow with the exception that your instruction says Resize and my system returned an error. Afterchanging to ReSize all went well and I was able to reduce the allocated space from 33 GB to 3GB.

Thank you

AS long as I don't peek below the surface of Vista, it is really easy to get to know. Raise the hood and it is a whole new ballgame.

 

[Brink]

You're welcome Zareba, and welcome to Vista Forums.

Strange, it should not matter on it being capitalized or not. I'm happy to hear that you got it sorted though.

Shawn

 

[gas1126]

Hi. I seem to have a different problem than that of the other threads in that I apparently have a lack of disk space available. I have an HP Presario notebook. On installation, HP automatically partition the D: drive exclusively for the OS with 6.64gb. Recently, my System Restore has failed. Although restore points can be sucessfully created on both "C" and "D", when I come to carry out a Restore, it says I cannot restore the D: drive because of: "Not enough free space to restore the disk". I have totally reinstalled the system (several times!) and the first thing I did thereafter was to successfully create Restore Points on both C and D. I then immediately tried to Restore the system and the message against the D drive was: "The disk is not in the selected restore point". Disk D properties currently show Used space = 6.27gb: Free space = 374mb. There is nothing else on the disk but the OS and I have run the DiskClean. As per your tutorial, my shadow copy storage for "D" is 6.609MB. The allocated storage is 300mb. The max storage is 300mb. (Yes, these figures ARE mb, and not gb!) I have increased the latter to 500mb but there is no change. My C drive shows comparable storage values of 2.424gb; 2.657gb; and 10.956gb respectively. Any ideas please?

 

[Brink]

Hello Gas1126, and welcome to Vista Forums.

Since you have a OEM computer, the D: partition is your Vista Recovery Partition used to restore Vista back to factory defaults with. You do not want to have restore points being created on this D: partition. Instead, you would only want them to be created on the C: drive. You will need to uncheck the D: drive below.

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

You can then adjust how much max storage space is to be used on the C: drive for restore points.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[gas1126]

Many thanks for the quick and simplistic reply. I have to say that I was under the impression that the D drive held the system files so it was free from any corruption that might have appeared on the main C drive. How wrong can you be? I have now shut down the restore facility for the "D" drive and everything seems OK now. Thanks again.

 

[Brink]

You're welcome Gas. I'm happy to hear that everything is ok now.

Shawn

 

[MilesAhead]

Dean,

If you had System Restore off, then turned it on later it may allocate a minimum of 30% of the available free space on the hard drive.

Shawn

Hmmmmm guess I have to save your commands as a .cmd file because Disk Cleanup doesn't clean off the restore points on my 64 bit machine. I did an image backup the other day and it was over 85 GB when the previous one was only around 25. It was all restore points!

 

[Brink]

Yeah, I find turning System Restore off and on a good way to wipe out the restore points. However, you do have to reset the MAX size again. A BAT or VBS shortcut would be helpful to reset the MAX after turning it off and on though.

 

[kmarston]

Hi
Yes worked for me, was using 26 GB.
Now reset to 3GB

 

[GradeAbra]

Brink i follow exactly what you wrote on the first page. Does that mean that now my system restore will only eat up a maximum of 3GB? If the shadow copy/restore point exceed 3GB, it will start to delete earlier restore point?

Thanks for the great help.

 

[Brink]

Hello GradeAbra, and welcome to Vista Forums.

Yes, 3GB will be the MAX size allowed before it starts deleting earlier ones.

Shawn

 

[GradeAbra]

Thank you

Continued here: http://www.vistax64.com/general-discussion/211774-free-hard-drive-space-shrinking.html

 

[Sound_Asleep]

when I type vssadmin list shadowstorage and press Enter. it says I don't have permission, have I done something wrong in the command in the CMD Window?

UPDATE:
oh no i've got it
Used : 9.011 GB
Allocated: 9.126 GB
Maximum: 10.429 GB
ok I definantly need to change that

 

[Brink]

Hello Sound_Asleep,

I'm happy to see you got it sorted. Just remember that the less max space you have, the less older restore points that you have available to go back to as well.

Hope this helps,
Shawn