3

To increase available space on a HDD (Windows Server 2012 Standard x64), I tried to enable NTFS compression on that drive. While doing the compression, it ran out of available space (despite having like 200GB on that HDD available at the beginning of the process). Compression process was interrupted because of this.

So I removed most of the files that were taking space (backups from other computers -- I didn't check whether or not space was recovered, I suppose it was) and I tried to disable file compression to recover space... It appeared to have complete, but the disk space available didn't reflect the real size of the files.

So I tried to enable the compression back (maybe the compressed files were still here or something), but it's even worse, with no space available at all. I disabled the compression again, but it didn't solve anything and the process didn't actually do anything due to the lack of space.

I tried moving some big files and folders to another drive (about 30GB or so), but the space of those files wasn't even freed up!

The screenshot below summarize the issue pretty well. All files and folders are shown including OS protected ones. Moving the files to another partition/formatting the disk, moving files back in place is not an easy option (lots of shared directories with different permissions).

Folder size vs disk free space on D:

Things tried includes :

  • chkdsk D: /f /r
  • optimize and defragement the drive

  • diskshadow > delete shadows all (shadowing isn't enabled anywhere in the system according to vssuirun)

    Chkdsk was executed in scan mode on a volume snapshot.

    Checking file system on D: Volume label is Share.

    Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ...

    Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ...

    Stage 3: Examining security descriptors ...

    Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems. No further action is required.

    CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)... File verification completed.

    CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)... Multiple object id files found. Ignoring extra object id files. Multiple quota files found. Ignoring extra quota files. Multiple reparse file found. Ignoring extra reparse files. Multiple Usn Journal file found. Ignoring extra Usn Journal files. Index verification completed.

    CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)... Security descriptor verification completed. CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal... Usn Journal verification completed.

    Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems. No further action is required.

    1953512447 KB total disk space. 1829806460 KB in 179847 files. 75060 KB in 15064 indexes. 0 KB in bad sectors. 893915 KB in use by the system. 65536 KB occupied by the log file. 122737012 KB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.

    488378111 total allocation units on disk. 30684253 allocation units available on disk.

Improve this question
6
  • run "disk cleanup" and delete all old system restore points (shadow points)
    – magicandre1981
    Commented Sep 3, 2015 at 15:35
  • It's Windows Server 2012, there is no "disk cleanup" utility nor restore points. Shadow copies are disabled ("used: 0 bytes", "next run time: disabled"). I'm thinking it might be somewhat related to data deduplication, but can't disable it since there is no space left on the disk. Deleting files doesn't release space...
    – Vincent
    Commented Sep 4, 2015 at 8:11
  • if Desktop Experience role is installed you have disk cleanup. Run TreeSizeFree as admin to see which folders "use" most space: jam-software.com/treesize_free
    – magicandre1981
    Commented Sep 4, 2015 at 15:13
  • 1
    This is a production server, I don't want to install Desktop Experience to get access to disk cleanup... I tried every repairs, looked everywhere, tried AVG PC Tune Up (which was only able to free space on the system disk)... It's definitively a bug probably between dedup and compression. I ended up breaking the mirror (=> 2 identical full partitions), I formatted the first disk, copied the data back to it (from the mirror), then mounted the mirror back. Worked like a charm except I had to put the permissions back on the files (the shares where kept intact). Thanks for your help anyway :)
    – Vincent
    Commented Sep 7, 2015 at 10:10
  • ok, post your steps in an answer and mark it as answer.
    – magicandre1981
    Commented Sep 7, 2015 at 15:57

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
0

Found no "clean" solution to this issue which is probably a bug between deduplication and compression. Hopefully the disk was mirrored. So :

  • Break the mirror (go to computer management > disk management > break mirrored volume) => you end up with 2 (full) disks
  • Format the first one (since all your data are also on the second one)
  • Copy back the data to the first disk from the second disk
  • Delete the partition and "add mirror" in disk management so the two disks are in sync again
  • Network shares are kept but not files and folder permissions

Et voilà!

Improve this answer
0

Taking the disk offline, and then back online (from Computer Management --> Storage --> Disk Management) will reclaim the disk space temporarily locked by NTFS compression.

This locking of free space by NTFS compression is a decade old problem, making it useless in some scenarios. See this answer for more background.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .