WSUS: WSUS content should be installed on a nonsystem drive

  • Article

 

Applies To: Windows Server Update Services, Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP1

This topic is intended to address a specific issue identified by a Best Practices Analyzer scan. You should apply the information in this topic only to computers that have had the Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) Best Practices Analyzer run against them and are experiencing the issue addressed by this topic. For more information about Best Practices Analyzer and scans, see Best Practices Analyzer on Microsoft TechNet.

Operating System Windows Server® 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012
Product/Feature Windows Server Update Services 3.0 SP2 (WSUS 3.0 SP2)
Severity Warning
Category Performance

Issue

WSUS content is installed on the system drive.

Impact

If the system drive runs out of disk space, this can lead to corruption of the operating system and denial of service for any other service.

Resolution

Move content to another drive to prevent WSUS content from consuming all disk space on the system drive.

The wsusutil command-line utility is used by administrators to manage WSUS servers and is located in the WSUSInstallDir\Tools folder of the WSUS server. This utility is installed only on WSUS server machines, not on console-only installations. When you run the movecontent command, wsusutil does the following:

  • Copies the update files from the old location to the new location. The old location is not deleted.

  • Updates the WSUS database to refer to the new location of the update files.

  • Makes sure that the content and metadata are synchronized.

The destination folder to which update files are moved must be on an NTFS partition. The utility will not try to copy update files if they already exist in the destination folder. The destination folder will have the same permissions that were set on the original folder.

Syntax: wsusutil movecontent contentpath logfile

Parameter Description
contentpath The new root for content files. The path must exist.
logfile The path and file name of the log file to create.

To move WSUS content to another drive

  1. Create a new content directory on another drive.

  2. Open a command shell.

  3. Locate the WSUSUtil.exe utility in the WSUSInstallDir**\Tools** directory of your WSUS installation. Type cd /d WSUSInstallDir\Tools.

  4. Type wsusutil movecontent NewContentPath logfile where NewContentPath is the new content directory, and logfile is the path and file name of the log for this operation.

    For example, type wsusutil movecontent D:\WSUS D:\WSUS\movecontent.log where D:\WSUS is the new path for local WSUS update storage, and D:\WSUS\move.log is the path of the log file.