Remove Single Instance Storage on Windows Storage Server 2003

[Trapper]

Hello All,

Due to a long and lengthy list of requirements I need to disable SIS on our storage server.

It's not really saving us any space, and it's playing havoc with our backup. The requirement to backup thousands of tiny .sis files is making a weekly backup take a whole week!

I have disabled SIS on the array, which is stopping any files from being associated now on - however I want to release the files already managed by SIS, and place them back into bog standard NTFS.

Now Storage Server 2008 has a little option built into the sisadmin commandlet which let's you totally uninstall it from a drive: sisadmin /u D: - however that option is not available on 2003!!

I have considering uninstalling SIS, but I do not want to end up deleting the files managed with it.

I do have a list of files managed with SIS - surprisingly there aren't many duplicates, which I don't inderstand. Most of it can be junked, but there is some work there.

I have also noticed that I can view and copy files managed with SIS in Explorer. Could I manually (booo!) copy these files off, remove the SIS Common Store, and then copy them back?

Has anyone had any experience of this, as I am well confused!

I just cannot understand why the 2003 version of sisadmin is missing the /U flag. It would have made this far, far easier!!!

[Trapper]

Additional:

Also are their technically two copies of the files on my drive? One in the actual location "D:\Students\Molly\Work\Doc1.docx" and a random 12455fgdfd.sis in the SIS Common Store, or is Windows fooling us into thinking the file in the users directory is actually there and taking us space, when it actually isn't?