Some server computers a few years back were shipped with small system drives and have been running low on space. We've taken steps to get unneeded stuff off the drive. I found that one our techs has been compressing the system drives on some. Some of these drives just were 2003 Server system drives, some also have Exchange on them. He's already done this on a number of servers. I always thought that wasn't a good idea for performance but also that it could actually damage the installation. Have people had any experience with this? What is the Microsoft recommendation on compression of system drives? Thankyou, DavidThanks, -drosen9

Personal experience is compressing drives really gives additional worries. Compressing system drives is asking for problems. It will definently degrade your performance alot. If I had space issues on my drives, it wouldnt even consider it an option. Why its there, I dont know.. Remnants from the past is my guess..

You should never ever compress the file systems on the critical servers like exchange,sql server and active directory server as these servers uses ESE databases. ESE requires sector independence for log-based recovery, and compression of files invalidates sector independence. Therefore, compression should not be used on volumes hosting ESE databases, or any database that uses write-ahead logging. http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;EN-US;Q170009 http://www.virmansec.com/blogs/skhairuddin

Hi David, Thanks for posting here. Agree with Jesper and Syed , it’s not recommended to set compress for system volume and exchange database file volume , please referring to Microsoft suggestions form the article below: Best practices for NTFS compression in Windows http://support.microsoft.com/kb/251186 Meanwhile, you could consider to use third party software to increase system volume space or replace new larger storage drives for server. Thanks. Tiger Li TechNet Subscriber Support in forum If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi David, If there is any update on this issue, please feel free to let us know. We are looking forward to your reply. Tiger Li TechNet Subscriber Support in forum If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.comPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.