System restore resets to 100% of SSD

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I noticed recently that system restore has been resetting its disk allowance to 100% of my SSD every morning on starting. That started with Windows 1909, several months ago I think, and has continued after the upgrade to 20H2. The PC is a Dell XPS, bought in Sept 2019, running Windows Pro patched to Jan 2021, with a 256 GB SSD and a 1TB HDD, using Kaspersky antimalware and Acronis backup software. My wife’s laptop, a Dell Vostro with the same software installed, does not show this problem.

Any ideas on what might be causing it?

Chris
Win 10 Pro x64 Group A

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Have you set it to a specific percentage of the drive?  (Settings > System > About > System Protection).  Could be that existing restore points are taking up more of the drive than is specified, so delete all existing restore points and then set the wanted percentage.  On my SSD I have completely disabled system restore – I do regular Macrium backups, and if I need to get back to an earlier time, I can just restore a backup.

Windows 10 Pro 64 bit 20H2

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@Bundaburra Yes – I have set it at 10% each day and it goes back to 100% the next morning. That should be fine to handle several restores. I am going to try setting it at 15% and see if that is any better.  I also do a full backup using Acronis, but only every month, so it seems to me having system restore available is sensible.

Chris
Win 10 Pro x64 Group A

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Something’s not right (duh!), 100% of the drive makes no sense.  Restore’s default is auto sizing.  As suggested, have you tried deleting all the restore points?  Then create one right after.

Mine are auto set at 1% of the boot drive and 2% of second drive.  Could be settings conflicts among Windows, Kaspersky and Acronis.  I do external backups too but the restore point utility is simpler and works fine unless something really bad happens and it becomes corrupted.

The registry location for percent disk is:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SystemRestore\cfg

If it’s set to 100 there, double click on disk percent, decimal and change to what you want.  Mine’s at 15.

🙂

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I did a test restore point with the usage well below the max and it still reset to 100% the next day. I have been resetting the disk allocation through the configuration setting in the restore point applet, which I would have thought would have the same effect as your registry setting. The registry setting is 15%, which is how I set it earlier today.

I doubt it is Kaspersky or Acronis because another PC with identical settings on those two packages does not exhibit  this problem,

Chris
Win 10 Pro x64 Group A

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Try to set Restore Points allocation using vssadmin.

Open Command Prompt as Admin.

Type the following command:

vssadmin list shadowstorage

Execute the following command to allocate disk space to system restore feature.

vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=X: /On=X: /MaxSize=NGB

In the above command, replace “X” with the drive letter of the drive where Windows 10 is installed, and replace “N” with the number of GBs that you want to allocate for the system restore feature

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/fbbf70d1-f1c4-475b-bebe-b020c352cbfd/system-restore-disk-space-usage-constantly-reverts-to-100?forum=win10itprogeneral

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Chris B

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Im affraid, that this Issue can be unrepairable. This has been hapenning with virtual memory on one of our office PCs. No matter what I did, there was alway something like 100GB of my pagefile.
Reinstalling Windows did the job.
Or probably restore to the point, where it did work. Thats why you backup, right?

Dell Latitude E6530, Intel Core i5 @ 2.6 GHz, 4GB RAM, W10 20H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

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[Chris B]

@doriel, if that is the right phrase for such good news! However, this is not my pagefile – it is the system restore library, so I live on in hope!

Sadly, I don’t really know when it started, probably months ago, so restoring my backups months ago, blind, could be a bit of a wild goose chase.

Chris
Win 10 Pro x64 Group A

• This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by Chris B.

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[doriel]

I wish you luck, I know you “fight” with your backing up solution, but if the percentage returns after boot, what can you do?

Anyway, I wonder why you have enabled windows restore points, when you use 3rd party SW to do that?
Looks like your 3rd party SW is messing with your setting.
Are you talking about this setting?

Dell Latitude E6530, Intel Core i5 @ 2.6 GHz, 4GB RAM, W10 20H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

• This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by doriel.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by doriel.

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I don’t think it is my backup software (I assume by SW that is what you mean) because an identical setup of Acronis on my wife’s computer does not show the problem.

I do a full disk backup once a month, and have left system restore on for short term protection e.g in case a Microsoft patch tanks the system (unlikely though that is). Do you think my routine is Over the top?

Chris
Win 10 Pro x64 Group A

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[doriel]

I don’t think it is my backup software (I assume by SW that is what you mean) because an identical setup of Acronis on my wife’s computer does not show the problem.

Yes, it seems like computer related problem.

Do you think my routine is Over the top?

I think your routine makes perfect sense, but at this moment it needs some adjustment.

Wait if this helps:

I have now tried @Alex5723‘s suggestion and will see how it works out overnight.

Then we can discuss things tomorrow 🙂

PS – If I were you, I would disable Windows backing-up, perform few restarts, maybe run
SFC /scannow
from command line and see if it remains.. But one step at the time.

Dell Latitude E6530, Intel Core i5 @ 2.6 GHz, 4GB RAM, W10 20H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

• This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by doriel.

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Chris B

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@Chris-b, of the two devices you mention, does one perhaps have 3rd party drive encryption or bitlocker activated?

Keeping IT Lean, Clean and Mean!

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@Microfix I am not using any kind of encryption, third party or bitlocker, on ether PC.

Chris
Win 10 Pro x64 Group A

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I tried setting the max size to 15% via the applet, and that did not cure the problem.

I have now tried @Alex5723’s suggestion and will see how it works out overnight.

That sparks an idea. Could I use vssadmin to move the system restore folder to my D: drive, where I have masses of spare space on a 1TB drive, and would that be a sensible thing to do?

Chris
Win 10 Pro x64 Group A

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Unfortunately, @Alex5723’s suggestion did not solve it – I am again back to 100% of the SSD allocated to System Restore.

I will try @Doreil’s suggestions later today. Windows backup is disabled, and always has been.

Thanks both for the suggestions.

Chris
Win 10 Pro x64 Group A

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@doriel  I ran sfc \scannow. It reported that it had found and corrected some corrupt files. I have not yet finished reading the log to find out what – it is only 8.3MB 🙂

I reset the restore allocation to 11% and ran 3 restarts. The setting is still at 11% after those, but until we let a new day start, I won’t know if it helps. I will report back tomorrow.

 

Chris
Win 10 Pro x64 Group A

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Interesting. If it remains after 3 restarts, why it would change the next day?
Im done here, I dont know how to solve this. Turn off FastStartup? But I dont belive it will solve the issue.

Dell Latitude E6530, Intel Core i5 @ 2.6 GHz, 4GB RAM, W10 20H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

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Next morning now, and system restore has again reset iself to 100% of the SSD.

Any more ideas, anyone?

Chris
Win 10 Pro x64 Group A

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This link might make interesting reading for you:

Acronis changing “max usage” slider in system restore

https://forum.acronis.com/forum/acronis-true-image-2016-forum/acronis-changing-max-usage-slider-system-restore?page=0

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Chris B

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@Doriel Exactly my thinking. I’m going to go through @moonshine’s link (which is quite long) and may be able to devise an experiment to narrow it down.

Chris
Win 10 Pro x64 Group A

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doriel

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Reinstall Windows from flash disk, select to preserve only personal data and you can hapilly live on. If it goes bad, you have your image backup 😉
You already lost few hours/days of your precious time, Dont waste it, use it wisely.

Dell Latitude E6530, Intel Core i5 @ 2.6 GHz, 4GB RAM, W10 20H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

1 user thanked author for this post.

Chris B

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[Alex5723]

I am running Acronis daily backups for years and Restore Point allocation has never changed on my systems (Windows 7, Windows 10).

• This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by Alex5723.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by Alex5723.

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. . . . might also be of use to some re Acronis

System Restore Max Usage Slider Being Reset By Some Ghost!

https://forums.majorgeeks.com/threads/system-restore-max-usage-slider-being-reset-by-some-ghost-not-me.296605/#post-1964793

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doriel, Chris B

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Firstly, thanks to @Moonshne for the pointer and thanks to @Doriel for reminding me of the law of diminishing returns on my time.

I reset the system restore allocation to 10% this am – utilisation was over that level. I did not check actual usage after that reset.

Based on @Moonshine’s lead, I checked the disk allocation immediately before and after the scheduled Acronis data backup at 8pm today. The move to 100% allocation happened in that time, but after the change the system volume actual usage is 0.2GB. I am not sure when it went down that low. So this seems to confirm that the problem is some interrelationship, inconsistent between computers, between Windows VSS service and  the backup routines, that neither Microsoft nor Acronis appear to be interested in solving.

So, I have three obvious ways forward.

1 I can reset the Restore allocation to 10% manually once a month, when I do some routine housekeeping. That will probably be enough to keep it under control and takes little time.

2 If I get bored with that, I can disable System Restore (which Windows strangely does anyway on any feature update) and rely on my Acronis monthly disk backups.

3 I can reinstall  Windows per @Doriel’s suggestion.

I am going to do 1, then 2, and get on with some productive work. Thanks for your help, guys.

Chris
Win 10 Pro x64 Group A

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