EV 9.0 and Exchange 2010 whitespace

[scullyau]

We are currently archiving using EV 9.0.0.1193 and Exchange 2010 SP1.

My question is when EV stubs the message in Outlook does the space become available in the Exchange database?

We are getting good archive rates but our Exchange databases do not appear to be decreasing.

Thanks

Enda

[RahulG · Accepted solution]

There is whitespace created on the exchange server after the archiving . You would need to run exchange maintatinance to free space on the exchange server .There is nothing directly Enterprise Vault can do to remove the whitespace. Indirectly we of course replace the original item with what should be a smaller item and thus create white space on the Exchange Store. This white space also sometimes called recycling space should be used up before the database expands again, therefore controlling the size. If however more email is being received by the Exchange Server than is being archived the white space and beyond will be used, and the Exchange Store will grow.You can probable run offline defragmentation on the excahnge server /stores
 

Edit : refer the following document http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH78263

[Rob_Wilcox1]

Remember the size on disk WILL NOT decrease, unless you do an Offline Exchange Defrag of the store(s).

[Manofmilk]

Generally speaking I would say that offline defrags are really not necessary with Exchange 2010: are you struggling for disk space at all? If not then don't worry about doing an offline defrag, its more risk and downtime than can be justified by any potential benefit.

If you don’t do an offline defrag what you should see is the rate of growth of your Exchange mailstores stopping completely or slowing down, compared to what it would be without EV, as EV keeps creating whitespace in the databases

[Simon_B_]

You should be aware of the fact that with default configuration of the vault stores the shortcuts in exchange are only created (thus space inside the DB is freed) when EV recognizes that a successful backup took place.

Did you verifiy that your backups are running fine (with pre/post scripts?) 

[scullyau]

Thanks for the reply, we have now started monitoring the whitespace within the Exchange DB and can see that EV is freeing up space within the DB.

As for an offline defrag to free the actual space, we are running Exchange 2010 so offline defrag is not required rather moving the DB to a new volume will have the same effect

Thanks for the response