System Restore Folder over 1tb even after Disk Cleanup

Hey all,

I've recently run into an issue where my System Restore folder(s?) is getting very large. I currently have two folders that appear to be backups: one with a special icon named after my Computer Name and if I double click on that the System Restore process is prompted; the other appears to be a normal folder and is called "WindowsImageBackup".

In order to clear up space I ran the Disk Cleanup utility to remove all of the shadow copies and all of the restore points except for the latest one. WindowsImageBackup is now down to 162gb which is very manageable, but the folder with my Computer Name and the special icon is still over 1tb.

I have a few questions, not the last of which is are there supposed to be two folders? And if there is supposed to be two folders, how do I reduce the size from the astronomically large 1tb of usage?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Gator said:

Hello albino, Welcome to Sevenforums.

Can you post a picture of the folder location and the folder contents.

Screenshots and Files - Upload and Post in Seven Forums

Since my c:\ drive is a small SSD I've placed my System Restore backups are on my d:\ 3tb drive. I'm attaching a picture of it along with some crops of the Properties for each. Thanks!

mjf said:

albino1 said:

WindowsImageBackup is now down to 162gb which is very manageable, but the folder with my Computer Name and the special icon is still over 1tb.

Firstly 162GB is a large system image suggesting you have too much data on your operating system partition which may be able to be moved elsewhere and backed up differently.

I don't have a lot of stuff on my operating system drive. There's maybe 2gb of music from iTunes, and I have a Virtual Machine which takes up 15gb, but other than that it's just Windows and Program Files stuff.

Your file/folder backup is massive. Try going into Backup and Restore > Manage space and see how many backup sets you have. You may want to delete some of the older ones if you have a lot. Also, Windows backup is not the best for backing up lots of large data files like videos etc - I'd use something else even a manual copy.

This is where all the space is going, you're right. There's 15 Backups all in the 60-90gb range. I don't even know what this is... do I need this for System Restore? Is it safe to delete the previous 14 backups?

mjf said:

Personally, I wouldn't delete all 14. I'd keep at least 2 in case the current backup set is faulty but it's your data and your call. If you delete data on your PC then clearly this won't be backed up in more recent backup data sets. My backup sets are typically ~6GB and for much more than this I find Windows backup painfully slow and backup using other means.

Your 162 GB image remains a puzzle. I think 30-60GB would be more typical. If you must image that amount then I'd certainly be looking at (free) Macrium reflect which will give you a decent amount of compression.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm not intentionally imaging anything as far as the 1tb AL folder is concerned, I didn't even know that feature existed, and still don't really understand what it does. I suppose it's for the thing where you right click and choose Previous Versions? Whatever it is, it's set to what Windows 7 comes with by default because I haven't changed it. The only thing I know that I'm intentionally using is the normal System Restore :) Appreciate the help.

That's a lot of great info, thanks so much!