June 22, 2009 at 8:14 am
When installing SQL Server 2008 I specify a path on the E: drive but SQL Server still uses about 1.5 GB of space on the C: drive.
Does anyone one know how to avoid using space on the C: drive?
Thanks
John
June 22, 2009 at 8:17 am
I haven't been able to figure this one out. What's worse is that SPs seem to want to unpack to the c: drive as well.
June 22, 2009 at 8:22 am
Thanks for replying so quickly. Yes this is a real pain, there must be a way of avoiding using the C: drive but I haven't found it yet.
Cheers
John
June 22, 2009 at 8:40 am
I'm not sure there is a way. My guess, or at least my hope, is that the installer uses %systemroot% for things, so if you've installed on d:, then it will use that. However, that just moves the problem. You don't want things on your root, and I'm not sure there's a way around that.
June 23, 2009 at 4:32 am
The SQL Server install places a large number of items into the Global Authorization Cache (GAC) which can only exist on the system drive. There are other files (such as the Setup Bootstrap) that are always placed on the system drive although in theory they could go elsewhere.
Looking at what space has been used on the System drive so far for the initial install, SP install and CU installs, I estimate you need to allow for 15GB permanent space for SQL Server on the system drive, and 1.8GB on your program file drive, over a 5-year lifespan for the server. This allows for 3 SPs and 10 CUs. You also need to have up to 2GB free space on top of this on the system drive during SP or CU installs.
If you do not have a program file drive and put everything on the system drive, then you are looking at 16.8 GB needed for SQL Server over a 5-year lifespan.
For additional instances you need to allow 300 MB on the system drive and 550 MB on the program file drive. (Call that another 1GB per additional instance if everything is on the system drive.)
This relates to having a system partition of at least 40 GB on W2008 (30 GB on W2003) if you want to allow space for 1 SQL instance and 5 years of Windows fixes to be applied in addition to the SQL fixes.
It is truely mind-boggling how much extra bloat functionality has been added since the days of NT4 when 0.5 GB was more than ample for the system drive 🙂
Original author: https://github.com/SQL-FineBuild/Common/wiki/ 1-click install and best practice configuration of SQL Server 2019, 2017 2016, 2014, 2012, 2008 R2, 2008 and 2005.
When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor they call me a communist - Archbishop Hélder Câmara
June 23, 2009 at 7:16 am
I agree. SQL 2000 and 2005 also put stuff on the C drive eventhough you change the defaults on the install. Very misleading. Everytime I install a SP or a CU I make sure I have enough free space on C drive before the install. I wish there was an easier way for the to distinguish the log/out files for a SQL install, SP and CU install so those files could be more easily identified and deleted later. After some digging I found about 150mb of log files to delete. After a month or so these files can be deleted instead of taking up space and our server backup software backing them up needlessly.
June 23, 2009 at 8:49 am
Wow, excellent information. Ed, you need to write this up as a short article!
June 23, 2009 at 9:53 am
Thank You Sir... very informative... I need this as prepare my department for a SQLServer 2000 to 2008 Server upgrade/installation. Is there anything I need to look out for..., any gotchas I can avoid... Thanks Much
June 24, 2009 at 4:40 am
Useful, thanks.
Just a small remark: GAC is "Global Assembly Cache".
June 24, 2009 at 6:21 am
GAC is "Global Assembly Cache"
Thanks
Original author: https://github.com/SQL-FineBuild/Common/wiki/ 1-click install and best practice configuration of SQL Server 2019, 2017 2016, 2014, 2012, 2008 R2, 2008 and 2005.
When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor they call me a communist - Archbishop Hélder Câmara
June 24, 2009 at 8:32 am
Steve Jones - Editor (6/23/2009)
Wow, excellent information. Ed, you need to write this up as a short article!
I'll second that!
Some words of advice needed as well about hotfix leftovers: should I/could I uninstall SP2 or hotfixes once SP3 is installed successfully?
TIA
June 25, 2009 at 5:07 am
Hello
I have done a comparison of space used on the C: drive of a W2K SP2 x64 server that has had SQL 2008 SP1 x64, SQL2008 SP1 x86 and SQL2005 SP2 x64, and a W2K SP2 x64 server that is a clean build (no addtional software including SQL Server installed). The space used in C:\windows\installer has increased by 3.5 GB and the space used in C:\windows\assembly has increased by 500MB.
This seems like a big increase, is it what you would expect?
Thanks
John
June 25, 2009 at 5:44 am
I would not be surprised to see almost 4.7 GB in total added to C: drive for the RTM installs for the 3 instances you mention, plus almost 2.6 GB extra after you have added the SPs.
What did you see as total space used on C: for your installs?
I do not have any breakdown on how this data would be distributed over the various folders on the C: drive, so I cannot comment on this level of detail.
Original author: https://github.com/SQL-FineBuild/Common/wiki/ 1-click install and best practice configuration of SQL Server 2019, 2017 2016, 2014, 2012, 2008 R2, 2008 and 2005.
When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor they call me a communist - Archbishop Hélder Câmara
June 25, 2009 at 7:32 am
what is the big deal about installing SQL to c drive?
we have some servers we inherited from a company we bought where the C drive is 2Gb or 4GB and it's always causing problems
June 25, 2009 at 7:44 am
Great information !!! thanks
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