By default SharePoint 2007 (MOSS) has logging turned on and will keep 48 hours worth of logs.

While this is a useful feature it can also consume a considerable amount of disk space on the C drive. The reason for this being that the default path for these logs, which can be found at “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\LOGS”.

Each log file is approximately 200MB in size with a new one being generated every 30 minutes (by default). This equates to at least 19-20Gb being consumed by logs over a 2 day period. As you can well imagine an implementation of SharePoint installed on a server with an OS (C drive) partition of 20-30GB’s in size will pose a real problem.

The easiest way to avoid any such disk space disasters is to alter your logging settings within the SharePoint ‘Central Administration’ console. After you start the console navigate to Central Administration -> Operations -> Logging and Reporting -> Diagnostic logging.

From this page you can adjust the amount to log along with where to store the logs. All very useful settings.

Obviously what you enter or adjust here will vary on a case by case basis though it would be advantageous to move the logs to a seperate physical drive with low I/O’s.

Here is a link to a good utility that will monitor your SharePoint log files in real time.

Technorati Tags: large,amount,disk space,sharepoint,moss,2007,consumed,run out,ran out,log,logging,default,turned on