System drive space for server 2008 VM

[cookie_monster]

We'll be rolling out some server 2008 VM's over the summer and i'm wondering what size to make my C: drives. Currently on 2003 DC's I allocate 20Gb and i've never come close to using it all. Should 30Gb be sufficient for a 2008 Domain Controller?

The reason I ask is I don't want have loads of wasted space on my SAN used up by unnecessarily large virtual disks and snapshots of them.

Cheers.

[Theblacksheep]

Depends if you are using DPM/VSS for system state backup. You'll need atleast 15GB free for SS, I've gone up from 25GB to 35GB for this.

[cookie_monster]

You mean shadow copies? I don't tend to use them on the system drive and I use Backup exec for backing up system state currently.

Thanks.

[Michael]

It really depends if you start to install other services such as SQL. If you have no plans to install anything big, then 30GB should be enough.

[cookie_monster]

No this will just be a DC, i'm just checking that 2008 doesn't eat loads of space over time. I'd install SQL Dbs on another drive anyway.

[Michael]

2008 does have a bigger footprint than 2003 without a doubt, but 30GB should still be enough. On most new servers, I setup the system drive to be 50GB. Even if you installed SQL on a seperate drive/partition, certain data will always be written to the system drive, such as the registry or system files.

[Theblacksheep]

You can always expand it...

[DMcCoy]

24GB will leave you with 12 or so after promotion, although 30GB should leave space for future service pack files etc. Turn off hibernate etc (powercfg -h off) to save space

[cookie_monster]

You can always expand it...

I'm only just starting to get the hang of Xenserver is it an option to just increase the size of the virtual disk?

[Theblacksheep]

I'm only just starting to get the hang of Xenserver is it an option to just increase the size of the virtual disk?

Dunno with Xen... VMware its pretty easy, even system disks like C.

[PiqueABoo]

24GB will leave you with 12 or so after promotion

24GB sounds like an ample size for a pure DC VM, but factor in memory/page file size if that's on C:, and how willing you are to keep it clean and tidy during it's lifetime.

I've got a 2K8 DC FR "lab bench" VM here with SP2 and a 2GB page file which is using 13GB. I have run the SP2 cleanup util that gives you no way back, but C: also has the big WAIK, WSUS (DBs etc. on another drive), dotNet 3.5SP1. I can't see disk usage getting past 16GB unless I do decide to throw some serious bloatware on there.

Should MS ever release a 10GB SP or something, with a pure DC it's not like it will be that much trouble to make a new one with a bigger C:

[FN-GM]

One thing to keep in mind is that it is pretty easy to resize partitions in Server 2008. You can give the server more if you need to in the feature.

[cookie_monster]

@ PiqueABoo - all our 2008 boxes will be rolled out as SP2 but I do usually keep them pretty tidy.

I think i'll stick with 30Gb it sounds like it will be plenty.

Cheers.