SharePoint 2013: Moving Central Admin to a New Drive

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This post steps through the high level process of moving the Central Administration (Central Admin) web site to a different drive with all of the details screenshots available in my SharePoint 2013 Solution Series Guide.

By default, the Central Administration web site is created on the C: drive using the default inetpub web site location. Many times administrators would like all of the web sites to run on a different drive, such as E:, since C: is a System Drive. While creating Web Applications, you may specify the location; the creation of Central Admin does not give you that option. You can easily move Central Admin to a different drive following fairly easy steps. (The same steps are possible in SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010.)

Basically all you need to do is Extend the Central Admin web application. In doing this you specify a new port and location for the web site. This is where you specify a location other than the C: drive. Then remove SharePoint from an IIS web site selecting the original Central Admin web application name.This removes the original web site from the C: drive. After this is completed, run the SharePoint 2013 Products Configuration Wizards such that the Central Admin port is updated.

 

That's it! In less than 10 main steps you can easily move Central Admin to a different drive and insure that there are no web applications running off of the C: system drive. Once again, the same steps are possible in SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010 as well.

 

Get all of the exact steps, details, and screenshots in my SharePoint 2013 Solution Series guide:

Check out the whole SharePoint 2013 Solution Series
New Titles Added Weekly!