Giant System Volume Information Folder

Win7 SP1
My System Volume folder is gigantic right now, almost 10GB.

I thought I could decrease that by deleting some older restore points with CrapCleaner.

When I looked at the SR points in CC, there is only one there, the most receont one, created today.

Is that possible---one restore point ten GB in size?

Or---has something gone wrong? If so, any way to fix it?

Anyone have an idea what could be going wrong with that--a 10 GB SV folder with only one restore point in it?

Of course, one solution would be to turn off system restore, so that everything in that folder is deleted, then start it again. However, if something goes wrong with the computer, that SR point could be a lifesaver, necessary to restore the system.

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One other question--can the contents of the SVI folder be copied to an external HDD for backup (I have taken ownership of the folder, and given myself full permission on it and subfolders), before turning SR off and on? Then if necessary to use that saved SR point, copy those contents back to the SVI folder of the original drive?

Well, you can actually start system restore and then click "Choose a different restore point" to display the other available points, see this tut.

System Restore

You can also a 3rd party tool like QRM Plus manager to take a look at the points.

How To Delete Individual Restore Points In Windows 7

Its possible the previous restore points got deleted for some reason or theres insufficient space allotted to them. You can set that space this way.

System Protection - Change Disk Space Usage

I did that--"choose a different restore point". Yet it still only showed that one.

I explained in the OP, that I did use a 3rd party tool, CC, to look at (and perhaps delete) individual points. But it also only showed that one!

How can one restore point take up 10 GB???

By the way, would it work to backup the Sysvol folder to an external HDD, then delete it? Well, I mean if I ever needed that restore point, could I copy it back to its original place, and would SR recognize it?

Bill2 said:

Well, you can actually start system restore and then click "Choose a different restore point" to display the other available points, see this tut.

System Restore

You can also a 3rd party tool like QRM Plus manager to take a look at the points.

How To Delete Individual Restore Points In Windows 7

Its possible the previous restore points got deleted for some reason or theres insufficient space allotted to them. You can set that space this way.

System Protection - Change Disk Space Usage

I dont know of any way to back up the sysvol folder. If this particular SR point is important to you, there're other ways of "preserving" it- you can create an image of the windows partition using excellent, free tools or even the builtin system backup utility.

Perhaps you've had a good experience with SR, but personally I always prefer an image.

Don't fiddle with System Restore. It works, and you WILL need it. The more restore points you can store the better. Decide how much space you are willing to give it and set it there. 10GB is nothing.

MacGyvr said:

10GB is nothing.

Please note--I was not talking about 10GB total size of System Volume, storing a lot of SR points.

My system only has one SR point stored, and sysvol takes up 10GBs.

Do you think that is normal, for only one restore point?

Bill2 said:

I dont know of any way to back up the sysvol folder. If this particular SR point is important to you, there're other ways of "preserving" it- you can create an image of the windows partition using excellent, free tools or even the builtin system backup utility.

Perhaps you've had a good experience with SR, but personally I always prefer an image.

I was able to do so with Windows XP. After giving myself full permissions to the sysvol folder, I would backup the contents of sysvol to an external hard drive. As I got more restore points, I would add those points.

If I then deleted them from the system drive to make room, but later needed one back for a restore, I could copy back whichever restore points I wanted from the external HDD to sysvol on the system drive, start System Restore, and I would see those points listed, that I added back, and I could restore them.

I found that very useful. For even if the user does not delete the restore points, the system often does, sometimes for no apparent reason! It really is a pain when one has a system crash, one goes to SR to restore a recent restore point, even one made an hour ago, and SR shows no restore points! (SR can really be a lifesaver, but it has major flaws like that.)

In Win7 that does not seem to work. Even giving myself all permissions to Sysvol, and being able to look inside the folder, it is impossible to copy them! I wish I could still back up my restore points, as I could in XP.

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One other change in sysvol in Win7, that I do not like. Contents of the sysvol folder cannot be defragmented, nor moved at all, not even on reboot. (I have Perfectdisk, and it can defragment system files--page file,. hibernate file, MFT, metadata, etc., on reboot.) Therefore, if one has a large sysvol folder, taking up a significant portion of one's drive, and it cannot be moved or defragmented at all, including on reboot, that can totally mess up the defragmentation of that drive. I did not have that problem in XP, as sysvol would defragment. What can one do in that situation? OK--turn off System Restore, so that all points are deleted, then defragment, then turn it back on. In the process though, one has lost restore points that one mgiht need. It would certainly be good to be able to back them up externally, defrag, then move them back.

In fact, I think that the ability to back up restore points to an external drive should be built into the Windows GUI, so one would not have to deal with permissions, ownership, etc.

But in Win 7 it seems impossible to back them up in any way!

Anyone know why they made the sysvol folder impossible to defragment in Win7, even on reboot?

Another change I would like to see, although the problem is not unique to Win7--Why should all restore points be deleted, if SR is turned off. Those are two different functions, turning SR on and off, and deleting restore points--and they should be kept separate.

If someone from Microsoft Windows development is reading this--please add the ability to backup restore points to the Windows GUI!