Exchange .edb size reduction

[Bobc]

This maybe more of an Exchange question but we're added about half a dozen users to EV in the past week which have archived about 13gb of data. I know there may not be a one-to-one change to the size of the Exchange database but what I'm noticing it that the .edb file size is not changing at all. I've checked to make sure that "delete orignal item on archiving" is set but for some reason we're seeing no change in the Exchange file size as items are archived. Is there something obvious we're missing ?

[Liam_Finn1]

When you delete items from your email the space in the database is marked as useable space when the nightly maintenance jobs run

The free space is not returned to disk as the database stays the same size but permits the free space to be reused.


If you want to regain the space you need to take the exchange mail store offline and then run an offline compression on the mail store

[MichelZ]

Bobc

The Size of the EDB file itself will not change until you do an Offline Defrag, I believe.

Cheers

[Liam_Finn1 · Accepted solution]

Bobc

Here is the Microsoft KB on how to do it

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/328804

[AndrewB]

Bobc,

Look for event 1221 which is logged after your nightly online maintenance is complete. It will show you the amount of whitespace in your edb. You shouldn't see the edb file grow at all until the whitespace gets low and should not have to perform an offline defrag unless you're in an emergency with disk space. (You would still need free disk somewhere to write the temp file to.)

[GertjanA]

Hello,

The best way to reduce the edb in size is the following:

Move all mailboxes from edb1 to edb2
dismount store where edb1 is in
delete the priv1.edb and stm file
mount the store
answer yes to create a new edb
move mailboxes back.

(told by MS consultant)

We had 1 edb which was 105 GB in size
Event 1221 told us whitespace was 5 GB
Calculation of mailbox-sizes + deleted items (!!) added up to 85GB
perfoming actions as mentioned gace EDB of 75 GB (apparently, the 'dumpster' is emptied at this action)

Anyway, run a test on 1 edb, be surprised

Gertjan

ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS HAVE A GOOD BACKUP AVAILABLE !!!!

[Aaron_Mears]

Offline DB maint will give you the space back, but use care when moving the user's off the DB, particularly if you need to recover any dumpster data.  Dumpster data is what users see when they go into 'Recover Deleted Items' but is also active on other folders that you perform a hard delete on.  So if an end user performed a shift+del on their special folder it would ask if they want it permanently deleted; this data would not be under the "Deleted Items" folder though.  Dumpster recovery is good for saving end-users from themselves, but also important if you are trying to get data off of a mailbox for a custodian.  You can pull from the dumpster all the deleted data if you implement the DumpsterAlwaysOn Reg Key in Outlook.  If you move the user mailboxes the dumpster data get's 'lost'.  You should decide if that is important.

Yes, this thread is a bit off-topic for EV.  But not as bad as Wayne's coffee mug compatability problem.

:)

[MichelZ]

Aaron

Good to know, thanks!

Cheers