|
|
Our Hot Pick: Rising Antivirus 2006 - Certified by TUV & Checkmark! Get 10% discount by entering this coupon code: ONDISCOUNT10
Hi - hope someone can help here...
I'm running SBS2003 SP2 on a 12Gb system partition with additional data
drive. Normally the system partition has about 2.5G free space. BUT...
At about 03:00 (local time) on most days (but not all!) this space suddenly
disappears, and the disk becomes full - so we have the usual mayhem which
happens when the system disk fills up - DHCP and licensing services fail,
etc etc.
Almost always, the disk space magically reappears soon afterwards (I can't
tell exactly how long, as there's no event to indicate it, but certainly by
07:00), and the server works fine. But today it wasn't - the system
remained at zero free space at 9am, so I deleted about 200Mb of rubbish,
checked that the drive showed 200Mb free space, then rebooted. When it came
back up, there was 700Mb of space on C - not 200Mb or 2.5Gb.
I think I remember reading somewhere about some kind of SQL Server
maintenance process which runs by default at 03:00, but now I can't find any
reference to this.
Some extra info...
1: When the system reported no free space, I checked the Properties of all
the files and folders in C:\, and added up the disc space used. It's about
9.5Gb, meaning that there should be 2.5Gb free space - but the drive
properties dialog shows zero space.
2: Automatic Updates is set to Check and Notify for new updates, but not to
download them.
3: We have a scheduled backup system (Veritas Backup Exec) running at 11pm
every night, but as far as I can tell there are no processes initiated at
3am.
4: Nothing appears in the System or Application event logs to indicate what
causes the loss of space - the first indication of a problem is a system
event 2013, indicating low disk space, which happens shortly after 03:00
So does anyone have any idea where my system disc space is disappearing to
at 3am most days, and how I can reliably get it back?
Thanks
Nik
|
|
Shadowcopy ?
Is you backup job completely done at 0300?
Is your maintenance for Exchange running at that time?
You could also monitor what is being added/deleted by running a dir size
program like mousesoft. http://www.mousesoft.co.uk/index.php?mds
Run it before you leave, then run another copy during the no space left time
adn compare.
"nik" wrote:
[Quoted Text] > Hi - hope someone can help here...
>
> I'm running SBS2003 SP2 on a 12Gb system partition with additional data
> drive. Normally the system partition has about 2.5G free space. BUT...
>
> At about 03:00 (local time) on most days (but not all!) this space suddenly
> disappears, and the disk becomes full - so we have the usual mayhem which
> happens when the system disk fills up - DHCP and licensing services fail,
> etc etc.
>
> Almost always, the disk space magically reappears soon afterwards (I can't
> tell exactly how long, as there's no event to indicate it, but certainly by
> 07:00), and the server works fine. But today it wasn't - the system
> remained at zero free space at 9am, so I deleted about 200Mb of rubbish,
> checked that the drive showed 200Mb free space, then rebooted. When it came
> back up, there was 700Mb of space on C - not 200Mb or 2.5Gb.
>
> I think I remember reading somewhere about some kind of SQL Server
> maintenance process which runs by default at 03:00, but now I can't find any
> reference to this.
>
> Some extra info...
>
> 1: When the system reported no free space, I checked the Properties of all
> the files and folders in C:\, and added up the disc space used. It's about
> 9.5Gb, meaning that there should be 2.5Gb free space - but the drive
> properties dialog shows zero space.
> 2: Automatic Updates is set to Check and Notify for new updates, but not to
> download them.
> 3: We have a scheduled backup system (Veritas Backup Exec) running at 11pm
> every night, but as far as I can tell there are no processes initiated at
> 3am.
> 4: Nothing appears in the System or Application event logs to indicate what
> causes the loss of space - the first indication of a problem is a system
> event 2013, indicating low disk space, which happens shortly after 03:00
>
> So does anyone have any idea where my system disc space is disappearing to
> at 3am most days, and how I can reliably get it back?
> Thanks
> Nik
>
>
>
>
|
|
Hi Brian - thanks for your help.
[Quoted Text] > Shadowcopy ?
Disabled on both volumes.
> Is you backup job completely done at 0300?
It completes at about 2.30am. But I'm not sure whether the disc space has
started to disappear by then, or whether it disappears suddenly at 3am.
Another late night looms... :-)
> Is your maintenance for Exchange running at that time?
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "maintenance" here..? But Exchange
runs pretty much in its default config on this box, as I don't feel I know
enough about it to mess with it.
> You could also monitor what is being added/deleted by running a dir size
> program like mousesoft. http://www.mousesoft.co.uk/index.php?mds
I did add up directory usage manually, which is how I identified that the
space was being soaked up by this logfile:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft
SQLServer\MSSQL$SBSMONITORING\Data\SBSMonitoring_log.LDF
The problem is that I don't know why - and there doesn't seem to be much I
can do to configure or manage SQL Server within SBS, and there's nothing in
the Event Log giving any indication that anything's happening, until the low
disc space alert.
The MS guys have suggested excluding this file/folder from our on-access
virus scanner, though they didn't say why - I guess something around
circular or recursive logging.
But if you know what's going on, please share!
Many thanks
Nik
|
|
First go find this, it can help move logs esp. the sahrepoint logs.
SBS_MoveDataFolders.DOC
I'd still get mousesoft(free) and id the files.
And on exhange, use server management, expand the advanced, go to the
mailbox store under first admin. group, server name, look at teh properties
of the mailbox store. database tab will tell you about the exchange
maintenance.
"nik" wrote:
[Quoted Text] > Hi Brian - thanks for your help. > > > Shadowcopy ? > > Disabled on both volumes. > > > Is you backup job completely done at 0300? > > It completes at about 2.30am. But I'm not sure whether the disc space has > started to disappear by then, or whether it disappears suddenly at 3am. > Another late night looms... :-) > > > Is your maintenance for Exchange running at that time? > > I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "maintenance" here..? But Exchange > runs pretty much in its default config on this box, as I don't feel I know > enough about it to mess with it. > > > You could also monitor what is being added/deleted by running a dir size > > program like mousesoft. http://www.mousesoft.co.uk/index.php?mds> > I did add up directory usage manually, which is how I identified that the > space was being soaked up by this logfile: > C:\Program Files\Microsoft > SQLServer\MSSQL$SBSMONITORING\Data\SBSMonitoring_log.LDF > > The problem is that I don't know why - and there doesn't seem to be much I > can do to configure or manage SQL Server within SBS, and there's nothing in > the Event Log giving any indication that anything's happening, until the low > disc space alert. > > The MS guys have suggested excluding this file/folder from our on-access > virus scanner, though they didn't say why - I guess something around > circular or recursive logging. > > But if you know what's going on, please share! > > Many thanks > Nik > > > |
|
Brian - thanks for your reply.
[Quoted Text] > First go find this, it can help move logs esp. the sahrepoint logs.
> SBS_MoveDataFolders.DOC
I appreciate that moving the SBSMonitoring_log.LDF onto another drive will
stop the server from grinding to a halt, so thanks for the tip.
But when I try to execute the first osql command listed in the doc, which is
Osql -E -S SERVERNAME\SBSMonitoring -Q "sp_detach_db 'SBSMonitoring'"
....I get the error:
Cannot detach the database 'SBSMONITORING' because it is currently in use.
The doc doesn't say anything about this - do I need to stop the monitoring
service first?
But moving the files isn't a complete solution anyway - if these logs are
going to eat gigs of disc space every night (and I don't know how big they
would get if the disc wasn't filling up) I need to stop them being generated
in the first place. Moving them to another drive will just fill that
drive - and there's little point wasting any disc space on a 2.5Gb log file,
especially if I can't even open it. :-)
I can shrink the monitoring db manually to get my disc space back, but
surely there should be some way of setting a limit on how big the logfile
can get?
> I'd still get mousesoft(free) and id the files.
I understand - but the mousesoft app doesn't claim to run on Windows Server
of any flavour, and I can see which are the problem files, so I'd rather
steer clear..
>
> And on exhange, use server management, expand the advanced, go to the
> mailbox store under first admin. group, server name, look at teh
properties
> of the mailbox store. database tab will tell you about the exchange
> maintenance.
The maintenance is enabled between 10am and 2pm every day, at hourly
intervals. I do see Exchange maintenance events in the log, there seems to
be no problem with them, and the maintenance isn't enabled anywhere near
3am.
But from other posts on this topic, it sounds as though I haven't followed
best practice about excluding folders from antivirus scanning, so I'll try
that over tonight and see if it stops the logs being generated. My AV
package (Sophos) does use an SQL instance.
Thanks,
Nik
>
>
> "nik" wrote:
>
> > Hi Brian - thanks for your help.
> >
> > > Shadowcopy ?
> >
> > Disabled on both volumes.
> >
> > > Is you backup job completely done at 0300?
> >
> > It completes at about 2.30am. But I'm not sure whether the disc space
has
> > started to disappear by then, or whether it disappears suddenly at 3am.
> > Another late night looms... :-)
> >
> > > Is your maintenance for Exchange running at that time?
> >
> > I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "maintenance" here..? But
Exchange
> > runs pretty much in its default config on this box, as I don't feel I
know
> > enough about it to mess with it.
> >
> > > You could also monitor what is being added/deleted by running a dir
size
> > > program like mousesoft. http://www.mousesoft.co.uk/index.php?mds
> >
> > I did add up directory usage manually, which is how I identified that
the
> > space was being soaked up by this logfile:
> > C:\Program Files\Microsoft
> > SQLServer\MSSQL$SBSMONITORING\Data\SBSMonitoring_log.LDF
> >
> > The problem is that I don't know why - and there doesn't seem to be much
I
> > can do to configure or manage SQL Server within SBS, and there's nothing
in
> > the Event Log giving any indication that anything's happening, until the
low
> > disc space alert.
> >
> > The MS guys have suggested excluding this file/folder from our on-access
> > virus scanner, though they didn't say why - I guess something around
> > circular or recursive logging.
> >
> > But if you know what's going on, please share!
> >
> > Many thanks
> > Nik
> >
> >
> >
|
|
|