Moving the Health Service State Store

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So yesterday a question was presented internally between my colleagues and I with respect to a situation a colleague was facing.  Suppose by chance you are installing the first management server, which happens to be the Root Management Server, in the management group and you install it to the %SystemDrive% volume.  Later you realize that as time goes on, the free space on the system volume decreases and you 1) wonder why and 2) discover it is due to Operations Manager.

After doing some further diagnosis, you identify the Health Service ESE database as the culprit and therefore, decide you want to move it to a different volume with ample free space to support it for the long haul.  It is installed by default in %ProgramFiles%$\System Center Operations Manager 2007\Health Service State.  This procedure is not currently documented in the Operations Manager Operations Guide, On-line Help, Knowledge Base, etc.  However, this solution I am about to provide you with was presented to the product group and they acknowledged it is approved and supported.  In order to move the Health Service State folder structure to a different volume, perform the following steps:

  1. Stop the following services - OpsMgr Health Service, OpsMgr Config Service, OpsMgr SDK Service.
  2. Create on the destination volume the directory you want to move the Health Service State directory to.  I recommend maintaining consistency and naming it - "Program Files\System Center Operations Manager 2007\Health Service State."
  3. Move the source "Program Files\System Center Operations Manager 2007\Health Service State" directory to the destination folder you created in Step 2.
  4. Verify the ACL permissions are at a minimum, set to Administrators (Full Control) and System (Full Control) on the directory and sub-directories.
  5. Warning: Editing the Registry incorrectly can result in your operating system or applications failing to function normally. Be sure you backup the system before you proceed with this step.   Open the Registry Editor and under HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\HealthService\Parameters key modify the following value "State Directory" with the destination path you have moved the source to. 
  6. Close the Registry Editor.
  7. Restart the following services - OpsMgr SDK Service, OpsMgr Config Service, and OpsMgr Health Service.
  8. Open the Event Log and in the Operations Manager Event View, verify there are no errors from the source Health Service, Health Service Modules, and Health Service ESE Store.

These steps are also applicable for the Agent, management server, and Gateway Server.