I have a secondary site server running Server 2003 R2 w/ a 30GB C drive and a 250GB D drive.  SCCM is installed to the C drive but the Distribution Point is housed on the D drive.  Currently the server has no drive space on C.  When I investigated, I found a single file under C:\SCCM\inboxes\despollr.box\receive - a PCK file - that is over 20GB in size.  What is this file, why is it so big, why is it on the C drive and what can I do about it?

Thanks in advance.

This is a compressed copy of a package. First of all you shouldn't install SCCM on C, secondly 30Gb is not large enough for a C drive on a server OS. (at least not server 2008)

You should reinstall SCCM onto D and add a file to C called no_SMS_on_drive.sms

First of all, on all of my other secondary site servers, the SCCM installation directory is less than 1GB and I saw no documentation stating that it should not be installed on the system drive.  Secondly, 30GB is pretty standard for a Server 2003 VM's system drive - We have hundreds of Server 2003 VMs with 30GB C drives that encounter no problems whatsoever.  If I have misunderstood the requirements for the installation drive of an SCCM secondary site server, please point me in the direction of the documentation that states so.

Something has gone wrong and/or SCCM is doing something inefficiently to cause this single file to grow to 20GB+ when I have not configured the site server to store packages on that drive.  This can't be normal behavior and I have to believe there is another solution besides "reinstall".

Thanks.

Garth - I understand that, but a DP storage location and the install directory are two different things and SCCM lets you configure where each should go.  I intentionally installed SCCM to the C drive because it is faster storage for logs.  I thought the whole point of being able to specify, under Component Configuration -> Software Distribution Properties, the drive where the Distribution Point stores its copies of packages was so that it would *not* store humongous package files on the C drive.  

What it looks like is that no matter what drive you configure your DP to store packages on, CM still copies the compressed copy to the installation directory first and then decompresses it.  This, in effect, means that I can only distribute packages as large as the amount of free space I have on the installation directory *regardless* of how much space I have on my DP package storage drive that I specified.

The server had 21GB of 30GB free before this huge file used *all* of the free space.

Yes that option will store the compressed files on which ever drive you have indicated. However as you have indicated “C:\SCCM\inboxes\despoolr.box\receive” this is not the location for storing packages, it is where package are received, before being move to the stored location. This location is where packages are received from a parent site are stored until the transfer is completed. My guess is that the 20 GB PCK file is either an image or SU package.

You are partly correct, CM will receive the compressed files in the inboxes then move them to the compress file location then extract them to a temporary folder on the root of the DP location, finally rename that location to the correct path.

I never install CM07 (or CM12) on the C Drive due to I/O issues with the OS, swap file and the CM07 inboxes. From performance stand point, you will get better performance by not have CM07 install with the swap file and the OS files.

The file is an SU package - its the only package I have that is larger than about 5 or 6GB.

I wish that MS warned about this behavior in the installation documentation... now I need to either re-install my secondary site or re-size the C drive.

I did a quick look at the docs and found this link http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/library/bb932128.aspx

In general, the basic flow of data from child sites to a parent site in a Configuration Manager site hierarchy is as follows:

·        Data files received from clients and child sites during site-to-site communication are stored in the appropriate site server inbox directory.

·        The site server reads the data stored in the inboxes and processes it. As part of the data processing, some of the data is committed to the SQL Server site database.

·        The data operations conducted by the SQL Server are a combination of deletes, updates, and inserts.

The “CM docs” team is fantastic at taking suggestion, if you feel that there needs to be more details, I recommend that you email the docs team (Their email address is listed at the bottom of every page within the help file, I would list it here but I don’t want them to get spammed).

The “CM docs” team is fantastic at taking suggestions, they may not reply to the email that you send them but truly do listen and all email are logged, so…

I'm pretty sure the docs talk about compressed copies of packages and disk space usage. I could be wrong though.

One another doc re: pck files

http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/scassells/archive/2009/09/08/savings-space-on-sms-sccm-servers-by-deleting-pck-files-the-pitfalls-and-fixes.aspx

Yes that option will store the compressed files on which ever drive you have indicated. However as you have indicated C:\SCCM\inboxes\despoolr.box\receive this is not the location for storing packages, it is where package are received, before being move to the stored location. This location is where packages are received from a parent site are stored until the transfer is completed. My guess is that the 20 GB PCK file is either an image or SU package.

 

You are partly correct, CM will receive the compressed files in the inboxes then move them to the compress file location then extract them to a temporary folder on the root of the DP location, finally rename that location to the correct path.

 

I never install CM07 (or CM12) on the C Drive due to I/O issues with the OS, swap file and the CM07 inboxes. From performance stand point, you will get better performance by not have CM07 install with the swap file and the OS files.

Hi Garth i have the same problem i have a PCK file too heavy for my drive C, can you tell me how you solve it, Thanks

The easiest way to solve this is to upgrade to CM 2012. :-)

In 2007 you must plan for the pck files. They will use a lot of disk space. You can prevent them from using the C:\ and force them to use other drives by placing a no_sms_on_drive.sms file at the root of C. Without that they will use the disk with the most free space.

Hi Garth i have the same problem i have a PCK file too heavy for my drive C, can you tell me how you solve it, Thanks

There is not supported way to solve this other than to re-install CM NOT on the C:\

However you could try to use Mounted disks for the Receive folder, but to my knowledge this is not supported.