Monitoring Free Disk Space using Performance Monitor

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There would generally be two things of interest when configuring performance monitor analogue points to monitor disk status - free MB on one or more disks, and possibly the percentage of free space on disk. Each of these can be obtained through the use of a performance monitor point.

To setup these monitoring points:

• Create a performance monitor scanner and analogue point as normal.

• In the performance monitor browser for the Tag, expand the section named LogicalDisk.

• For free MB

Expand the branch named Free Megabytes
For a specific drive, select that drive letter eg C:
For a combination of all drives, select _Total

• For free space percentage on drives

Expand the branch named % Free Space
For a specific drive, select that drive letter eg C:
For a combination of all drives, select _Total

The LogicalDisk option will only be available on operating systems after Windows XP. If you are using Windows 2000, you will need to enable this functionality using the DISKPERF utility.

To configure disk monitoring, type DISKPERF /? in a command prompt window. The following should be displayed:

DISKPERF [-Y[D|V] | -N[D|V]]  [computername]-Y Sets the system to start all disk performance counters when the system is restarted.-YD Enables the disk performance counters for physical drives when the system is restarted.-YV Enables the disk performance counters for logical drives or storage volumes when the system is restarted.-N Sets the system to disable all disk performance counters when the system is restarted.-ND Disables the disk performance counters for physical drives.-NV Disables the disk performance counters for logical drives.

computername Is the name of the computer you want to see or set disk performance counter use. The computer must be a Windows 2000 system.

NOTE: Disk performance counters are permanently enabled on systems beyond Windows 2000.

To enable disk monitoring on this system, type DISKPERF -YV and hit ENTER. This will require a restart of the machine. After a restart, the performance monitor tag browser will now display the LogicalDisk option and the points described above can be selected.

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