Installing SharePoint 2019 on a Non-OS Drive

Question

About the installation of SharePoint 2019 on-premises:

Is it possible to configure SharePoint so that no websites are hosted on the OS drive (C:), particularly in compliance with IIS 10 Site Security Technical Implementation guidelines? Specifically, can SharePoint Central Administration and SharePoint Web Services be installed in a manner that avoids paths in C:\Program Files\Common Files\...?

Past attempts to install all SharePoint components on a different drive have resulted in most components being installed elsewhere, but not all. Is there a possibility that this is a common issue or has anyone successfully managed to install all SharePoint components on a non-OS drive?

Answer 1

Hi @Cory Williams,

SharePoint is always installed on the boot drive - typically C. There should be lot of things that you should be considering if you really want to have SharePoint in a different drive:

1. SharePoint Logs - Even if you point SharePoint to be installed on a different drive, it manages to create C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14 folders - the 14 hive for storing important information including Logs.
2. Dependencies - SharePoint is dependent with a mix of technologies like IIS and SQL server, where in IIS gets loaded by default to the boot drive usually C, which would have the Inetpub folders and so on.

Finally, I would prefer SharePoint installation to be on the default C drive to make it easier.

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