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WSUS 3.0 using 120GB of space?

Tackle

Hi,

I have a 2003 Server with WSUS 3.0 installed on it. As of right now, with just the OS and WSUS, it's taking up 120GB of space. This is outrageous. I Googled it, and found people were complaining when it was taking up 10-20GB. Are you kidding me??? 10-20GB of space and your complaining?! I'd be over joyed if I could get it down to even half of what it's using now.

In the options, it doesn't have much selected. Less than 15 check marks. Exchange 2003, XP, Windows 7, Server editions, 2 office editions and some other odds and ends.

I'd rather not upgrade to 2008.

What can I do to get rid of all the old files or files that are no longer used? I tried the "purgeunneededfiles" and it cleared out and had 6GB free, only to be downloaded again the same day. Same results when I ran it again. Waste of bandwidth. The "Server cleanup" does not clean a single item.

Any ideas?

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Comments

Devilsbane

Are you downloading all updates, or English only?

xxxooxxx

What is the path of the folder, that has all these 120GB of data? WSUSContent folder?

demonfurbie

how many different workstation oses on your network

humdingy02

That does seem like a lot, but you're talking about the entire drive right? Check the WsusContent folder to see if it's really WSUS that's eating that much space. If it is, check both the Products tab and the Classifications tab. You could be downloading Drivers, Tools, Feature Packs, etc.

If WSUS isn't using all of that space, check the Documents and Settings folder? If the server's been around for a while, it might have a ton of profile data on it that can be cleaned up.

it_consultant

Use Windirstat to determine where your space is being used. I bet dollars to donuts you have a crap ton of log files (probably IIS) that need to be purged.

WinDirStat - Windows Directory Statistics

Tackle

Thanks for the responses!

The WSUSContent folder was taking up 108GB
Less than 100 nodes on the network getting updates. (XP & 7, Server 2k3, 2k8 and 2k8r2)

***I figured out the problem. I don't know if the guy before me was approving all updates, but there was over 5000 approved. Even for OS's that we have never had/have were downloaded.

I added "Superceded" to the column view. Here I could see that a ton of updates were superceded. I went through and declined all superceded updates for types that we don't have (Server 2000, Vista, XP x64, Itanium). Then ran the Server Cleanup. That freed up 51.5GB! I can only image how much more space I can gain by removing superceded updates that are NA or 100% installed for software that we actually use. That will be this weekends project, then time to shrink the disk (I love vmware). I may also take a look and see how big the logs are getting.

I guess this shows that you need to pay pretty close attention to and understand your WSUS server or you will end up filling your drive.

MentholMoose

Devilsbane wrote: »

Are you downloading all updates, or English only?

This is a common cause of high usage... there are dozens of languages so that will be dozens of copies of many patches (some patches are multi-lingual) unless you remove the languages you don't need.

Tackle

MentholMoose wrote: »

This is a common cause of high usage... there are dozens of languages so that will be dozens of copies of many patches (some patches are multi-lingual) unless you remove the languages you don't need.

They were all English except for a handful of Multilingual for Office. Seemed weird to me.

I just re-read this tread. It made me laugh. Seems everyone has had to deal with an end user before. Always need them to tell you everything before you can come to a conclusion. I like it! I do the same thing.