System Protection - Change Disk Space Usage

How to Change Maximum Disk Space Used by System Protection and System Images in Windows 7​

   Information

By default, Windows 7 will allocate up to 10% of your total C: drive/partition size to be used by system protection to store system restore points in this allocated disk space. This allocated space will no longer be available as free space on the drive/partition.

This same setting also determines the maximum disk space that can be used to store system images on a drive letter. The size of a system image can be quite large since it will include all system drives in the image by default plus any drives you have included. If you want to keep multiple system images, be sure to increase the max size accordingly.

• How to Backup User and System Files in Windows 7
• How to Create a System Image Backup in Windows 7

This tutorial will show you how to manage and change the maximum disk space you want to be used for system protection restore points and system images in Windows 7.

   Note

Restore points are saved until the disk space System Restore reserves is filled up. As new restore points are created, old ones are deleted.

It really depends on how many restore points you would like to have stored on your computer for what you should set the MAX storage size to be.

The size of each restore point will vary from system to system due to what you may have installed. As a rough guidline, I would give about 1.3GB of space for each restore point that you would like to keep. You can adjust the MAX size as needed if you are not getting the amount of restore points you would like though.

   Warning

As space fills up, older restore points and system images will be deleted to make room for new ones.

OPTION ONE

Through System Protection Properties Page

1. Open the Control Panel (icons view).
A) Click on the System icon.

B) Go to step 3.
OR

2. Open the Start Menu.
A) Right click on the Computer button and click on Properties.
3. Click on the System Protection link. (See screenshot below)

4. Close the System window. (See screenshot below)

5. Click on the available hard disk drive or partition, that you want to change the System Protection disk space usage for, to select it. (See screenshot below step 6)
NOTE: Windows 7 should be the C: disk with (System). System Protection will need to be turned on for the selected disk to be able to adjust it's disk space usage.

6. Click on the Configure button. (See screenshot below)

7. Adjust the Max Usage slider to how much disk space you want System Protection to use for restore points for the selected disk (step 5). (See screenshot below step 8)
NOTE: Slide left for less space, and slide right for more space.

8. Click on OK. (See screenshot below)

9. Click on OK. (See screenshot below step 6)
NOTE: If you reduced the max size, then it may take a day for the "Current Usage" size to automatically shrink down to be within the set max size.

OPTION TWO

Manually Using an Elevated Command Prompt

1. To See the Current Allocated System Restore Size
A) Open an elevated command prompt.

B) If prompted by UAC, click on Yes.

C) In the elevated command prompt, type in the command below and press Enter. (see screenshots below)
NOTE: This will give your the details on the Used, Allocated, and Maximum spaces of Shadow Copies for the available disks that you selected to have system restore turned on for. The left screenshot is for just one drive selected, and the right screenshot is for two drives (C & D ) selected.
vssadmin list shadowstorage

Result | Description Used | This is the amount currently used on the hard disk.
Allocated | This is the amount that is currently reserved from the hard disk.
Maximum | This is the maximum amount that could be allocated and used from the hard disk.

2. To Change the Maximum System Restore Size
NOTE: If you turn System Restore off for a selected drive, the original default values will be set back and the restore points will be deleted.
A) In the elevated command prompt window, type the command below for the drive letter and max size you want.
WARNING: If you change the MAX size to a smaller size than the current Used size shown in step 1 above, then the older restore points will be deleted to adjust to the new size. Nothing will happen to the restore points if you make the MAX size larger than the current Used size shown in step 1 above.
* For a listed C: drive, you would type the command below and press Enter.

vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=[B][COLOR=red]C:[/COLOR][/B] /On=[B][COLOR=red]C:[/COLOR][/B] /Maxsize=[B][COLOR=red]3GB[/COLOR][/B]

OR

vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=[B][COLOR=red]C:[/COLOR][/B] /On=[B][COLOR=red]C:[/COLOR][/B] /Maxsize=[B][COLOR=red]5%[/COLOR][/B]

* For a listed D: drive, you would type the command below and press Enter.

vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=[B][COLOR=red]D:[/COLOR][/B] /On=[B][COLOR=red]D:[/COLOR][/B] /Maxsize=[B][COLOR=red]3GB[/COLOR][/B]

OR

vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=[B][COLOR=red]D:[/COLOR][/B] /On=[B]D:[/B] /Maxsize=[B]5%[/B]

   Note

See the screenshots below step 1 above under the Shadow Copy Storage association line for each drive listed.

Command | Description /For= |The For volume: listed. (Ex: C or D above)

/On= |The Shadow Copy Storage volume: listed. (Ex: C or D above)

/Maxsize= |The % of HDD size or amount of KB, MB, GB, TB, PB, or EB you want to limit the maximum storage size of shadow copies and restore points to. This must be 300MB or larger .

B) You will get a Successfully resized the shadow copy storage association message.

C) If not, repeat step 2 checking for any mistakes that may have been made.

D) If yes, then check with step 1 above to confirm the change for the selected drive.
3. Close the elevated command prompt when done.
NOTE: If you reduced the max size, then it may take a day for the "Current Usage" size to automatically shrink down to be within the set max size.
That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Turn System Protection On or Off in Windows 7
• How to Enable or Disable Windows 7 System Restore
• How to Delete System Protection Restore Points in Windows 7
• How to Make a Create System Restore Point Shortcut in Windows 7
• How to Add "Create Restore Point" to Context Menu in XP, Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8
• How to Create a System Restore Point in Windows 7
• How to Do a System Restore in Windows 7
• How to Manage the Offline Files Disk Space Usage in Windows 7
• How to Create a Windows 7 System Protection Properties Shortcut
• How to Enable or Disable Windows 7 System Restore Configuration
• How to Restore Files and Folders in Windows 7 with Previous Versions
• How to Change the Recycle Bin Storage Size in Vista and Windows 7
• How to Free Up and Recover Hard Drive Space in Windows 7
• How to Stop System Restore Points from being Deleted in Vista and Windows 7 when Dual Booting with XP
• How to Delete Shadow Copies in Vista and Windows 7
• How to Extract Files and Folders from System Restore Points in Windows 7 and Vista
• How to Enable or Disable Automatic System Restore Point Creation in Windows

 

[Brink]

I use Disk Clean up(option 2). I notice that it does not delete Shadow Copies only restore points. So how can i clean up shadow copies?

GradeAbra,

You could do this to only delete shadow copies. A soon to be tutorial later.

New tutorial:
How to Delete Shadow Copies in Vista and Windows 7

 

[Dave76]

Nice soon to be tut, thanks, works nicely.

Bookmarked...

 

[GradeAbra]

Thanks alot. This is great. Does this delete you last restore point too? Because i notice that my restore point is gone. I got back all the 3GB.

 

[Brink]

GradeAbra,

Yep, shadow copies (previous versions) is consisted of restore points and Windows Backups (if created), so any shadow copy volumes deleted will also delete the restore point that they were part of.

 

[Stryker94]

Useful tip.. Thanks alot mate you just helped me save gigs of space

 

[Brink]

You're welcome Stryker,

Just remember to have enough max space set to be able to keep a few restore points stored if needed. A restore point could save you from having to do a clean install of Windows 7 if something should go wrong.

 

[GradeAbra]

You're welcome Stryker,

Just remember to have enough max space set to be able to keep a few restore points stored if needed. A restore point could save you from having to do a clean install of Windows 7 if something should go wrong.

Is there anyway to set or create a permanently restore point? Or prevent it from getting deleted automatically?

 

[Brink]

You're welcome Stryker,

Just remember to have enough max space set to be able to keep a few restore points stored if needed. A restore point could save you from having to do a clean install of Windows 7 if something should go wrong.

Is there anyway to set or create a permanently restore point? Or prevent it from getting deleted automatically?

I'm afraid not using a restore point, but creating a system image backup would be a much more effective way backing up everything though. Now that would be one good restore point.

 

[Teerex]

Hi Brink

I played with the System restore settings on the volumes where it was off (turned it On, changed sizes, finally turned it off). Now I can't get maxusage on the drives where system protection is off back to 0 as it was before, bellow 1%. What can I do to make it so again?

 

[Brink]

Hello Tomislav,

Yeah, this is normal. System protection has to be turned on for the volume to be able to adjust it's maxusage. When off, it's not using any of the drive's space for system protection, and deletes what was used prior to turning it off.

 

[Teerex]

Hello Tomislav,

Yeah, this is normal. System protection has to be turned on for the volume to be able to adjust it's maxusage. When off, it's not using any of the drive's space for system protection, and deletes what was used prior to turning it off.

Yes, but before I turned it on Maxusage was 0 bytes. Now I can't get it back to that value although system protection is off for the volume. :sarc:

I found one solution - pretty crude - re-create the volume. Well, I'll use this lesson to increase my system partition on disk 0 a tad.

 

[Brink]

Sorry Tomislav. I was thinking the opposite for some reason.

Did clicking on the Delete button not restore Current usage back to 0 afterwards?

When system protection is off and Current usage is at 0, then max usage doesn't matter since it's not used/allocated until system protection is turned on for it.

You should also be able to use OPTION TWO in the tutorial to manually set the max usage to 0 as well.

 

[Teerex]

Unfortunately no, Brink. Once you move the slider to the right, ain't nothing gonna make it go back to showing no value at all - except recreating volumes.

 

[Brink]

Yep, you're correct. I double checked, and the max usage can only be set to 300MB or more using the command prompt in OPTION TWO. That stinks.

 

[Teerex]

Yep, you're correct. I double checked, and the max usage can only be set to 300MB or more using the command prompt in OPTION TWO. That stinks.

Yes, and using the GUI (slider) you can't go below 1%.

Funny thing, I set my sistem partition to be 100GB and that's what it shows in Disk management, but Explorer says 99,9 GB. Well, that's aesthetically fist-in-the-eye-ish, but what can I do. I'll leave it that way.