Free disk space

The free disk space Monitor allows you to set disk space thresholds so that you are alerted if your machine’s disk space utilization reaches the warning or error level that you specified. The free disk space monitor uses local communication to test the amount of space available.

Disk space is the amount of secondary storage (also known as auxiliary memory), which is not directly accessible by the CPU. It uses I/O channels to transfer necessary data to primary storage (physical memory) that the CPU can then access directly. Accessing data on a secondary storage device is slower, but it is also less expensive and provides more storage space than physical memory. Secondary storage is also non-volatile, meaning that data is stored even without power. The most commonly used secondary storage devices are hard disk drives and flash memory devices.

Faulty applications may consume all free disk space when they hang or crash. Certain viruses, Trojans, and network attacks are based on draining the storage space. Running out of free disk space can disrupt processes that write data to secondary storage. These processes may include logging, maintaining a database, and installing updates. Some of these processes may be critical to the operation of your business.

Low free disk space can also lead to file system fragmentation. This causes performance issues when pieces of data need to be read from different parts of the disk.

Some systems use secondary storage as virtual memory, moving the least-used data from the physical memory and retrieving it back when it is required. On such systems, running out of free disk space can lead to performance degradation similar to running out of free physical memory.

Adding a free disk space monitor

Before proceeding, please ensure that you have created the component and your Anturis Private Agent for Windows/Linux is running.


  1. On the Component page, click Add/Remove Monitors > Add Custom Monitor.
  2. Select the Local Resources Monitors tab and the Hardware sub tab view.
  3. Select Free disk space Monitor and click Next.
  4. Select a period of time from the Monitor Period drop-down menu.
  5. Select the agents (servers) from the list.
  6. Click Next.
  7. Choose the Drive / Mount point from the list.
  8. Under free disk space threshold, set the appropriate values for an Error threshold and Warning threshold.
  9. Enter a Monitor Name and set consecutive measurements.
  10. Click Next.
  11. On the Monitor test result step, click Next when the test is passed.
  12. Click Finish.


To manage your monitor, click View/Edit parameters.


To add a free disk space monitor via the second option, follow the steps below:
  1. From the Infrastructure view page, click "+" Components.
  2. Select the Server component and click Next.
  3. Select the agent (server) from the list and click Next.
  4. Click Finish.
  5. On the Manage Component Monitors page, select the free disk space slider.
  6. [Optional] Change the monitor Name.
  7. [Optional] Change the default value for refreshing intervals (min).
  8. Enter the appropriate threshold values, under Warning and Error.
  9. Go to Monitor Status Change Rule and specify the number of consecutive measurements needed to change the monitor status.
  10. Click OK.


To manage your monitor, go to the Monitor Manager and click on the slider to deactivate the monitor.