How to reduce WSUS disk usage?

Question

My WSUS installation is now using 100 Gb of disk.

Is there a way to reduce this usage? How can I, say, delete updates included in Service Packs?

If the very good advice from David times out, check this link: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/7b12f8b2-d0e6-4f63-a98a-019356183c29/getting-past-wsus-cleanup-wizard-time-out-removing-unnecessary-updates?forum=winserverwsus#7b12f8b2-d0e6-4f63-a98a-019356183c29 — James Newton, Dec 15 '14 at 18:02

score 9 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 24 '12 at 20:16

9

You can go to Options > Server Cleanup Wizard, in the WSUS window, and clean up unused updates and update revisions, computers not contacting the server, uneeded update files, expired updates, and superseded updates. I do this approx. once a week, sometimes a little less frequently.

WSUS Server Cleanup Wizard

answered Oct 24 '12 at 20:16

David

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This dialog never finishes. I let it run for several days and the cleaning never came to end. – motobói Dec 17 '14 at 11:13
Great walk-through... Saved me about 70% of wasted space by WSUS. WSUS should handle the superseded files automatically, this is a huge miss by Microsoft again... This company is getting consistently worse each year: product evolution, quality, support, design, cloud obsessed... Thank you for taking the time to share this article. – James Apr 17 '20 at 19:45

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 10 '15 at 14:35

I have found another quite effective approach.

Go All Updates folder, and set:

Approved on Approval field
Any on status field

Then right click on column titles and check Supersencence. A new column 2 will appear. Use it to sort all your approved items.

Select all superseded items (they are grouped by 2 different icons), and decline them.

Then go in Options->Server cleanup wizard and set only Unneeded update files

Run it.

NOTE: This 'brutal' approach saved a choking server by reducing the disk usage (about 50%).

How to reduce WSUS disk usage?

2 Answers2