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I'm seeing a rather large number of machines lately with System Volume Information folders ranging from large (50G) to huge (350G), on both desktops (Windows 10, various builds) and servers (2012R2, 2016, 2019). I have ways of clearing them fairly well established, but preventatives aren't there yet. I'm using Optimize-Volume in multiple ways and doing other things too, but it's not doing enough, they fill back up. I'm theorizing that Windows is just making demands which the storage cannot fulfill. Anyone have a way to throttle Windows to match storage, rather than trying to extract more capability out of the storage?

Edit: Please note that I'm not talking about storage space, I'm talking about read/write/seek "horsepower". Windows appears to be using VSS as a kind of cache, and orphan shadows are piling up when demands go stale. I'd rather throttle Windows somehow, or many different somehows, so that the demands slow down, rather than go stale.

Jonathan Brickman of Topeka KS
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There are several things (usually system processes, but not only) which can take up space in the System Volume Information folder.

How to stop them from doing that depends on the specific cause.

There is no "global" way to tell Windows "just don't use so much space on that disk".

Massimo
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  • I'm not talking about space. I'm talking about available drive system seek+transception capability. – Jonathan Brickman of Topeka KS Aug 12 '21 at 19:11
  • Since the above, have run into some interesting registry tweaks, "MinDiffAreaFileSize" and "MaxShadowCopies". The overall advantages available of changes to these are not, to my knowledge, documented yet, but they do seem to be probably applicable. Current documentation seems to exist only under Windows Backup: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/backup/registry-keys-for-backup-and-restore – Jonathan Brickman of Topeka KS Oct 24 '21 at 21:35