One of the common issues I see in VDI are FSLogix profile disks taking up a lot of space. Users’ profiles grow organically over time as they use VDI. If an IT administrator doesn’t monitor and perform regular maintenance on the profile shares, they can run out of space. When this happens, users are unable to log on and active profiles start to become corrupted. Adding more storage can temporarily get things back online; however, that might not always be an option as adding more storage and expanding shares can require an outage window depending on how things are configured.
Here are some steps you can take to quickly reduce space in an FSLogix share:
Step 1 – Delete profiles for stale users
This is the quickest method to quickly regain space. Look for profiles that belong to disabled users or non-existent accounts, or no longer use VDI. When a user leaves an organization or stops using VDI, their profile often remains behind. You can delete this data or move it to another storage location for backup or compliance reasons. In smaller organizations you can review the FSLogix share manually, but in larger organizations you should leverage a script.
Step 2: Mount and shrink profile disks
Shrinking profile disks can quickly regain space for inactive profiles. When you use dynamic profiles, the profile disks grow artificially from temporary application cache data and application installs. The problem is that these profiles never shrink back down after the data is deleted. To remediate this issue, you need to mount each profile disk and shrink it. This can be accomplished manually or by using a script. Please note, the profile disk must not be active when you perform this action.
Step 3: Purge profile data causing profile bloat
Profile bloat is caused by applications saving files that require a lot of space in a user’s profile unnecessarily. FSLogix comes with a list of default files and folders that are excluded from the profile disk automatically. This information is stored in an XML file with the local application install. You can modify this list to include additional paths for data you want to exclude.
The best way to identify this data is to review the largest profiles in your environment. This can be accomplished by creating a local copy of a large profile, mounting it in File Explorer, then using a disk management utility to identify where the bloat is coming from. Once you identify the large folder/file locations, do some research to identify if this data is necessary if not. If it is not required, you can add it the FSLogix exclusion list to remove it from the profiles.