Reclaiming disk space from “system volume information”

1. To see the space allocated and used for SVI:

• Open Command Prompt with “Run as Administrator” option
• Type in: vssadmin list shadowstorage
• You will see Used Space, Allocated Space and Maximum Space for SVI

2. To see the restore information stored therein:

• Use in the same console command: vssadmin list shadows

3. To resize the maximum allocated space:

• Type in command: vssadmin resize shadowstorage /on=[here add the drive letter]: /For=[here add the drive letter]: /Maxsize=[here add the maximum size]
• E.g., vssadmin resize shadowstorage /on=C: /For=C: /Maxsize=4GB
• You will see a prompt confirming resize done
• You can check the status again using the command discussed in point 1 above

4. Just to get rid of the space already consumed, but sticking to the same size of max-size as before:

• Do actions as per point 3 to set the max-size t, say, 1GB
• If you check now, most likely you’ll see that used space is now 0KB
• Do the resize again and set it back to what it was before
• Check your disk space availability in Windows Explorer, you should see the reclaim is done!

It is not recommended to turn off Volume Shadow Copy. However, if you still want to disable Volume shadow copy than follow the steps as below:

1. Click on Start, type services and press enter.
2. Locate the service "Volume Shadow Copy" and right click and click "Stop".
3. Close Services windows.