Reclaiming drive space

[RabbieBurns]

Running low on space on our staff file server. Its a VM so I could easily expand the VHD however I'm sure there is a whole load of crap on there that could be archived to tape.

 

This is a seperate drive than the staff personal folders, its a shared drive for resources.

 

WinDirStat gives me an overview of the types of files, but is there something I can use that will pull out the files that havent been accessed since a certain date so I can remove all the old / stagnant files?

 

Im also looking at moving to sharepoint in the future for the shared resources so It would also be good to sanitise the data so I dont end up just moving the problem from a shared drive to a sharepoint document library.

[Dragon]

Do a standard search for files that haven't been modified since a certain date.

[Psymon]

You could search the drive for last modified date on all files - then sort by that field.

 

You should be able to get rid of stuff that is 3+ years old without any issues (providing the users are happy it's useless).

 

Si

[british_government]

Disk Space Manager software at its best: TreeSize Professional

 

get the demo but worth buying! Really good search and analysis features, also you can do duplicate file searches, chances are 5 teachers in the same department have the same 500mb avi!

 

Also a future solution, server 2012 deduplication

Introduction to Data Deduplication in Windows Server 2012 - The Storage Team at Microsoft - File Cabinet Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

[Psymon]

Speaking of server 2012, if you have it installed somewhere you can copy the deduplication files and run them on one of your production severs (no matter what version of server it is running) and it will tell yout he potential savings from migrating this server to 2012 and taking advantage of the deduplication.

[british_government]

Speaking of server 2012, if you have it installed somewhere you can copy the deduplication files and run them on one of your production severs (no matter what version of server it is running) and it will tell yout he potential savings from migrating this server to 2012 and taking advantage of the deduplication.

REALLY!?!?!?! That is awesome, every day 2012 gets better and better for me!

[Psymon]

Quoted from - Plan to Deploy Data Deduplication

 

Step 3: Evaluate savings with the Deduplication Evaluation Tool

When the deduplication feature is installed, the Deduplication Evaluation Tool (DDPEval.exe) is automatically installed to the \Windows\System32\ directory. This tool can be copied from any Windows Server 2012 installation to systems running Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows 7 . You can use it to determine the expected savings that you would get if deduplication is enabled on a particular volume.

DDPEval.exe supports local drives, and it supports evaluating mapped or unmapped remote shares. The following exampleshows running DDPEval.exe by using a command syntax:

DDPEval

 

C:\> DDPEVAL.EXE \\Server\Testshare

C:\> DDPEVAL.EXE E:\Test\

C:\> DDPEVAL.EXE F:

 

This will produce output similar to the following:

Data Deduplication Savings Evaluation Tool

Copyright 2011-2012 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

 

Evaluated folder: E:\Test

Processed files: 34

Processed files size: 12.03MB

Optimized files size: 4.02MB

Space savings: 8.01MB

Space savings percent: 66

Optimized files size (no compression): 11.47MB

Space savings (no compression): 571.53KB

Space savings percent (no compression): 4

Files with duplication: 2

Files excluded by policy: 20

Files excluded by error: 0

When the space savings percent is calculated, you can make an informed decision to install deduplication or not.