Volume Labeled 'System Reserved' low on space

Question

Hello, 
 We have been having issues with all 4 of our servers we are trying to back up with Rapid Recovery (version 6.1.1.137). I believe this issue has been going on since we started using Rapid Recovery about a year ago (I inherited this issue, so I don't know for sure). 
 What we are getting is an error/warning on the Protected Machines/any server/Volumes, under the "Set a Schedule" section. The "Volume Labeled 'System Reserved'" has a yellow exclamation point, and when I mouse over it, I get this message: "Some volumes do not have enough free space. Please note that the transfers for full volumes may fail." The Space Usage shows 288.56 MB used of 350 MB. As the space gets more full, we get a pretty generic error (with a red x) that says: "The transfer of one or more volume images from a protected machine to the Core has failed." We are assuming it's because the space is too full. 
 My supervisor said lat year, they had to contact Microsoft to help clear some space on the System Reserved partition of each server's hard drive. I called Microsoft support and they helped get into that partition, and we found a file named Winre.wim in the folder Recovery\WindowsRE. It was 245 MB. Microsoft said they don't know what it is, and guessed it may be related to the Rapid Recovery software. Microsoft suggested we move it somewhere else, or delete it (after verifying with Quest that it's ok to do so). However, doing a quick internet search, it appears the file is a Microsoft file and it's needed to boot into the recovery partition in case of problems. 
 So for my next step, I chatted with Quest support to see if they knew what the file was and if we could get rid of it safely or not. They said it's not one of their files, and recommended other options to free up some space. They recommended removing the volume from the protection schedule, refresh the metadata and wait a few minutes for logs to be cleared, check for free space on the server, and add it back to the protection schedule. I tried all that, and it freed up 1 MB. Maybe I didn't do it right, I don't know. 
 So we are still having the same issue. My supervisor also said that Quest (Dell at the time) said that the System Recovery is needed for restoring everything from backup, and if we don't have good backups of it, everything else we have is pretty useless. So this is a critical need to get fixed. 
 Has anyone else had this issue? Is System Recovery absolutely needed to be backed up? Can the Winre.wim file be moved or deleted? Or is there a better way to free up space from that partition? I thought about expanding it, but internet searches say for recovery to work, the disk has to be Basic (not Dynamic). 
 
 Thanks!

chrunos · Accepted Answer

you can create a system repair disk if you using Windows 7. you can create a recovery drive in Windows 10. then you can delete the WinRe file because you can use the recovery disk to restore from backup if your computer fails to boot. 
By the way, you can also use free tool AOMEI Partition Assistant to extend system reserved partition without data loss. you need to move some unallocated space behind the system reserved partition.

phuffers · Answer

The file that you are referring to is a MS file, and it does sit on the SRP volume by default. However that fact that you have ~60 MB free, is file, nothing to worry about there as that in of itself is common. As far as Rapid Recovery is concerned, the 'warning' is just that. Any volume that has less than 20% free will display that it is filling up (even if you are using 850 GB of 1 TB) within the core UI. This does not prevent any functionality, it is simply and alert as once the volume is actually full, or very near your VSS backups will start to fail as MS will not be able to create a snapshot upon that volume (which is the MS default). Normally the SRP volume you mention does have less than 100 MB free, in fact I think fresh Windows installs only leave something like 70-90 MB free in it. The yellow exclamation point from the Rapid Recovery UI is just informative, it does not hinder any functionality. 
 As far as backing it up, I would recommend that you backup your SRP volume upon the same backup schedule as your C drive to ensure a successful boot come restore day.