This blog post will guide you with steps to configure low disk space alerts for SCCM database server. You will also learn how to modify the disk space alert threshold for the site database server based on your organization’s specific requirements.
Configuration Manager administrators can make use of alerts to know how the SCCM environment is doing. When you install SCCM, it automatically configures some alerts for you. However, administrators can create custom alerts based on the company’s requirements. For instance, you can create an alert whenever an automatic deployment rule fails to run.
Some operations in Configuration Manager generate alerts when an error occurs that needs to be resolved or to warn you that a condition exists, allowing you to continue monitoring the situation. It is the responsibility of the administrator to view these alerts and take appropriate actions.
When you set up a site database server for SCCM, you place the database on a dedicated drive. It is crucial to keep an eye on the amount of free disk space because a SQL database can take up a lot of it. If a database’s data file fills up its allocated disk space, the database will be read-only until more space is available. Ignoring this issue will impact Configuration Manager’s functionality and could lead to numerous other problems.
Low disk space alerts for SCCM Database Server
In the Configuration Manager setup, the drives used for SQL databases typically run out of free space. By default, SCCM generates two alerts when free disk space on a site database server is low:
- Generate a warning when there is 10 GB or less of free disk space.
- Generate a critical alert when there is 5 GB or less of free disk space.
The above alerts are generated for every Configuration Manager environment as a measure to notify administrators that disk space is low. When the defined conditions for these alerts are met, the alerts are generated and displayed upon console launch. To see these alerts, you must first enable the notifications in SCCM site properties.
For instance, in the below screenshot, we see that the SCCM console is displaying a database critical alert for low disk space for the site. The administrator can postpone the critical alert or hide it. However, this alert does appear upon the next console launch.
Modify Disk Space Alert threshold for SCCM DB
When you receive low disk space alerts in the SCCM console, you can either modify the alert threshold to prevent it from triggering again or act upon it and take the required action. Remember that the low disk space alerts are triggered only when the defined conditions are met.
A SCCM administrator can configure the threshold for low disk space alerts on the site database server using the following steps:
- Launch the Configuration Manager console.
- Go to Administration > Site Configuration and select the Sites node.
- Select the site for which you want to configure the alert.
- In the ribbon, select Properties. Switch to the Alerts tab and then define the disk space in GB to determine when the SCCM should generate a warning alert and a critical alert for low disk space.
A critical alert for low disk space on the site database server can be viewed by going to Monitoring > Overview > Alerts > Active Alerts. Right-click on this alert and select Configure to modify its trigger conditions.
Configuring the above alert definition lets you define a disk space value in GB. If the disk space falls below the specified value, an alert is generated. Before you define the disk space size, always check the free drive space on the database server and then set a proper value.
In the below screenshot, I have configured the alert to generate whenever the database files free disk space goes below 512 GB.
After performing the above steps, you can configure email subscriptions to alerts. Subscriptions can send details by email, informing the ConfigMgr administrators that free disk space on a site database server is critically low.
Common solutions for addressing low disk space on a site database server
Once you’ve identified that the SCCM DB server is running low on disk space, you can try these solutions:
- Free up disk space: Use the Optimize Drives tool in Server Manager to free up disk space on the server computer. You can also try moving large files to another disk drive that has enough free space.
- Delete unnecessary files: Clean up the temporary files, outdated backups, unwanted applications, and items in the recycle bin. As a best practice, it is recommended to keep the ConfigMgr site backups on a different server.
- Delete IIS logs on the SCCM server: The log files that IIS generates can, over time, consume a large amount of disk space. Refer to the following guide that shows how to clean up IIS logs on the SCCM server.
- Increase storage: Create a backup of the database system and restore it to a new database system with more storage. Alternatively, if the DB is hosted on a virtual machine, you can consider expanding the disk space.
- Check disk usage: Use SQL Server Management Studio to check the data and log space information for a database.
Conclusion
Alerts and management insights are two important features of Configuration Manager that provide valuable information about your setup. Properly configuring SCCM enhances system efficiency and allows for timely alerts that can prevent potential issues before they escalate. By adjusting these alert thresholds, you can ensure that you receive accurate notifications, enabling proactive management of your database server resources.
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