Windows Server 2008 R2 low disk space alert & solution

In Windows 2008 Server, if there is little free space in the system C drive, Windows pop up a “Low Disk Space” alert, saying “You are running out of disk space on system C: To free space on this drive by deleting old or unnecessary files, click here…

low disk space

Windows creates the low disk space warning to alert computer users when their hard drive is running low on available disk space. Windows 2008 Server low disk space will cause many problem, for example:

  1. Server runs much slower or stuck.
  2. You cannot install any applications or Windows updates.
  3. System crash if extremely low free space remains.

You’d better fix the low disk space issue for your server as fast as possible. Nobody likes to see system crash, in that case, you have to start over keeping the server offline for a long time. To fix Windows Server 2008 low disk space issue, firstly try to clean up disk and then expand c drive as large as possible. By freeing up space, you can disable the low disk space warning temporarily, but this warning may pop up in the future, because system update and files, applications and other files will eat up the free space of C drive continuously. To completely solve this problem, you should expand C drive to larger size. To save time, you may jump to steps to expand C drive directly.

Free up space to disable Low Disk Space

Option 1: Delete Temp files

Click Start > Run, input “%temp%” or open directory step by step “C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Temp”

Option 2: Delete old Shadow Copies

Open “My Computer“, right-click C drive, select Properties, switch to “Shadow Copies” tab, delete old volume copies.

Delete shadow copy to free up

Option 3: Empty Recycle Bin and decrease the disk usage size

Empty Recycle Bin by right clicking it, but before this, you’d better open it to check whether these files can be deleted permanently.

To decrease the Recycle Bin disk usage size:

Right-click Recycle Bin > Properties, you can easily custom size.

Free up disk space 2008

Option 4: Remove Old Stuff

Uninstall the program you no longer use and delete the related files.

Option 5: Run the Windows Clean Manager

Windows comes already with a built in cleaner that does simple basic tasks to free up disk space.
To access it click Start -> Run -> type cleanmgr -> press OK.

Change the way running your server

  • Keep data separate from the Operating System, one partition for Operating System, one partition for applications and the others for data.
  • Change default download and cache path of the applications out of C drive.
  • If you turn on Windows backup and restore point, don’t set it too large.
  • Delete caches and temporary files with Windows cleanup utility regularly.

What to do if you cannot reclaim large amount of free space? Yes, the steps above are very useful for the server that never free up disk space, but to the server that is maintained regularly or the server C drive was created too small, you’d better continue to expand C drive. Otherwise, you’ll see Low Disk Space alert in Server 2008 in near future.

Server partition software is able to take free space from other volumes and add into C drive, so there will be plenty of free space to use.

Expand C drive to fix low disk space

Step 1: Download and install NIUBI Partition Editor, right click drive D: and click “Resize/Move Volume“.

Extend volume

Step 2: In the pop-up window, drag the left border rightwards to take free space out from D.

Shrink d drive

Drag to resize

Click OK and back to the main window, 20GB Unallocated space that take from D created behind C: drive.

Volume shrank

Step 3: Right click C drive and select “Resize/Move Volume” again, in the pop-up window, drag the right border rightwards to hold the Unallocated space.

Extend C drive

Extend volume

Click OK and back to the main window, 20GB free space added into C drive. Press Apply on top left to execute, done!

Volume extended

As you see, it is very easy to extend C drive. What to do if there is not enough free space in D? It doesn’t matter, just take from other drives in the same disk.

Video guide to add more free space into C drive

(Recommend full screen by clicking the square at bottom right of this video)

In Summary

When Windows Server 2008 Low Disk Space alert pops up, free up disk space with Windows Cleanup, and then add more free space from other volumes to C drive. NIUBI Partition Editor can help you resize partitions without losing data. Besides shrinking, moving and extending partitions, it helps you do many other disk partition management operations.

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