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Analyze the disk usage for your SharePoint Farm!
Let's be honest, more often that not, there are two questions that you often have to ask yourself in the world of SharePoint Administration: Who moved my cheese? and Who is hogging all the disk space in my Site Collection? While I can't help you with your cheese, I can offer up a suggestion for monitoring disk space on your SharePoint Farm.
SharePoint, well, MOSS, offers up a solution to analyze the usage of your farm with the _layouts/storman.aspx page. But this has two drawbacks: First, this is only available if you have quotas turned on in your Web Application. Second, it doesn't give you much information on a site-by-site basis. And since it only lets you view 100 items at a time, copying the data to Excel to do a little self-analysis isn't possible.
Updates Below! Be sure you have v 1.6!
So what does one do? This is where the Space Monitor comes in. With this application, administrators can now look at a Web Application and see what sites (and subsites and lists and libraries) are using the most space.
How does it work?
The SharePoint API gives you methods to return information on every item in a Web Application. If you're familiar with the storman.aspx page, this is the same data presented there. There is also a method to return the size of the content database (this is what the quota is based off of, not the actual size of your items). Taking these two sources of data, I have put together an application that puts this combined information in a format that is more useful for SharePoint Administrators to analyze.
Cool. So how does one get this application?
The EXE is available in my DOWNLOADS section. Look for the file named SharePointSpaceMonitor.zip.
How much?
It's free. Yeah, one day I'll figure a way to start a software company. Until then, I am offering this application up as "Donationware". But I re-state: I am not charging any money for this application. However, I am requiring a Registration Code to be entered in order for the application to run. Why? First, after the VARIATIONS EDITOR experience I found that I enjoyed getting feedback and finding out where my application was being used. Unfortunately, there was no way to really track the application without people emailing me. With that in mind, my requiring a Registration Code will give me an opportunity to track who is using my application. (No, the application is NOT Spyware. It will not "call home". I promise. You emailing me is the ONLY way I will know who is using the app.)
My second reason for the Registration Code is that, frankly, I'd be more than happy to make a buck or two off the application if people find it useful. I understand that I won't get rich off the program, but one has to start somewhere, right?
If the full version is free, why would anyone donate money?
First off, let me say for the record that donating money will not get you a "professional" version with any extra features. In fact, any version you download will be the full version. If you contact me (via email: sharepointspacemonitor AT gmail DOT com ) asking for a Registration Code, I will send you one free of charge. This code will work for 4 months. At the end of 4 months, if you still like the application, drop me another email and I'll send you another free code. This can go on as long as you want to use the application. Am I sadistic? No. But it does give me an idea of who is using my application and how long it's proving to be useful. So this is for statistics. No other reason.
Now, that being said, there has to be some motivation for people to donate, right? Here's what I'm offering. The second type of Registration Code is given if you decide that the application is worth a donation towards its future development efforts. If you do donate, you will be sent a code that will never expire. So the app will be yours to use and you never have to email me again. Another benefit of donating? Updates. If you find something that you think should be added to and will improve the product, let me know. I'd love to hear it. But I'll be honest, I have a new baby on the way, so my free time that currently goes to programming applications like the Space Monitor will be cut down greatly. And while I'd love to write versions 2.0 and 3.0, if the application stays as a hobby, I can't guarntee many updates. However, if there is a good donation response, then obviously the application is proving to be a useful tool in the SharePoint community and it will be worth the time to update. I know that sounds harsh, but that's the truth.
If you do choose to donate, I thank you. It will be greatly appreciated. Email me at "sharepointspacemonitor AT gmail DOT com" and I will set you up with a PayPal link. Recommended donations are $5 for individuals and $20 for companies, but I'm won't hold you to that. If you do not want to donate, that too is fine. I understand (I too like free stuff) and I'll still be happy to send you as many free codes as you want.
That being said, since the application is free (even if you donate), I offer it on a "use at your own risk" basis. I do not believe it will harm your system. It doesn't have the ability to delete or modify anything. But still, by downloading this application, you've accepted the fact that you did this on your own and will not hold me liable in any way. I say this to cover my butt.
Using the Space Monitor
When you run the application, the first screen you will see is the LOGIN screen.
Since we don't need people scanning sites they shouldn't and since accessing some of the needed API functions requires Site Collection Administrator permissions, you will need to logon with an account that has Site Collection Admin permissions or higher. Keep in mind that the list of sites the application will present you will be security trimmed based on the account used.
As user feedback has shown, if your Site Collection is VERY heavily locked down, there is a possibility that even the Site Collection Administrator account will not return results. In these cases, aim for as high-level and account as you can get. I wish I had a better solution, but this is SharePoint and I can't avoid security-trimming.
Before you login, you will need to enter your Registration Code. If you don't have one, email me and I will send you a free 4-month code. If you want to get started now, here is a code that will be good until the end of March. (Update: this code has expired. Please contact me for a new code.)
8197-DCD2-C9C4-AE22
Enter this code (dashes included) into the code box and click Enter. The login form will then be enabled. (And a text file containing this code will be created beside the Space Monitor EXE. I don't like random Registry entries on server software so I'm not creating one with my program.)
Once your credentials have been entered, the application will scan the Farm for all available web applications you have access to. This list will appear in the drop down box in the upper left hand corner of the applicaiton. Select the site you wish to scan and click "Scan".
The application will then scan the site, build a navigation tree of all sites and subsites available, and obtain the storage data. When the scan is complete, the top-most site is selected and the data presented.
The first section to note is the Tree Naviagation. This is a tree view of the site you scanned. Clicking a node will show you the information pertaining to that site.
The next section to note is the Quota/Content Database section. If you have Quotas enabled, you will see the same bar chart shown in StorMan.aspx. If you do not have Quotas enabled, no chart will appear, but you will be shown the size of your Content Database.
Below the Quota section are the Current Site Information Section and the Site Collection Information Section.
The Current Site Info Section is the left-hand section. This shows you the breakdown of the information in the site selected in the navigation tree. The Pie Chart shows the disk size of all Lists and Libraries in the site.
Below the pie chart is a quick summary of the current site showing the Owner, Author, Last Item Updated Date and the Created Date of the site.
The Site Collection Information section will show you a comparison of the current site and all its subsites. The bar chart will give you an idea how the sites compare. The current site is compared directly to the subsites. Any subsite that takes up more than 50% of the total site space is shown in gold. Clicking the name of the SubSite is the same as clicking that site in the Navigation Tree. So you have the ability to drill down into your information using this section as well as the Tree Navigation.
Below these sections is where you will see the items in your site. For the site selected (not including subsites), you can see all lists, libraries, and documents. Clicking the column header will sort the list by that item in a descending order. By default, the display is sorted by item name.
Finally, the application has reporting built in. Next to the Scan button is a Print button. This will print a report of the current site selected. A screenshot taken of the XSL Print is below.
That's it. I hope you find the application useful. The early feedback has been very positive and I hope that continues.
One point to note. This application has been tested to work in the following SharePoint environments:
MOSS 2007 (32-bit)MOSS 2007 (64-bit)WSS 3.0 (32-bit)
UPDATE: It has been pointed out that on some systems scanning MySites may not return correct results. This is being looked into. I'll post an update when a solution is found. Actually, this has been fixed. MySites scan correctly. What doesn't happen, and this is a problem with MySites in general, is that they do not appear as a collection of subsites but rather as sites to themselves. So there is no way to drill down into all the MySites.
UPDATE (3-3-9): An update has been made to the application if you have a very large site. The original totaler for all items in a site was not large enough for some of the larger site collections. This has been changed.
UPDATE (3-26-9): An update has been made that handles an exception found when subsites become corrupt. Be sure you have version 1.2.0.0 (currently in the ZIP file in the downloads section) if you have come across this error.
UPDATE (3-26-9): Found a glitch with Managed Path-based Site Collections. This has been patched. The ZIP has been updated. Check for v 1.3.
UPDATE (4-15-9): Another bug has been found for very large site collections. The ZIP has been updated. Be sure you have v 1.4.
UPDATE (4-28-9): SSL. Who knew? But the bug that prohibited SSL sites from being scanned properly has been patched. The new lucky version number is v1.5.
UPDATE (5-5-9): No real bug fix here. Just added an error log in case a scan doesn't look right. This creates a text file that shows the caught errors so I can diagnose any potential issues easier. Current version: v1.6.