Exhange help (defrag problem)

[MrCoffee]

Hi everyone,


I have a question about exchange server and defraging. Our edb and stm file sizes were getting really large, so my co worker decided to take the exchange store offline and run a defrag on it. About half way thru the server was restarted. (Two identical servers and he forgot which one the KVM was on and restarted it).

Anyways, it left behind some "temp" files (i.e. TEMPDF2430.EDB) which are taking up a huge amount of space. Can these be removed without a problem? It seems there are three or four of them, and we are down to about 7% free since the reboot.

Thanks!

[morganlefay]

Can you not just move the files....

Thats what I would do...

Exchange is a funny beast.....so if you move them or back them up BEFORE you delete them you will have them incase exchange throws a fit looking for them.

I would shut down the services and do a full offline exchange backup...before deleting, anything....

MHO of course.

Also you did not mention what version of exchange???

MLF

[MrCoffee]

Your right Morgan, I should have been more specific, but was a bit frazzled to go to luch with 30% free space on my Exchange server and to return with 9% free and total DOOGGGGGGGYYY performance...

Ok, it is Exchange 2000 on a SBS 2000 server. Exchange is running on its own 24G partition. I was able to move the temp files to a didfferent partition without any issues. But my EDB and STM files are huge still, over 18G (combined). Not sure if that is enough remaining space to properly DeFrag them now or not.....

[morganlefay]

Are you doing regular online backups????

This usually reduces the space...because it clears the exchange logs...

******DO NOT BACKUP M:\**********
or scan it with any AV or other utility

Backup the store...online to clear logs.

Make sure circular logging is disabled.....

How many users...???

We have 40 here...heavy exchange use...and our exchange is only about 5 gigs in total

get the users to clear the deleted\sent\ and any other crap they have living in the mailboxes
...cause your store has a 16gig limit...reach that and you are *****ed.

Exchange does its own maintenance nightly

[MrCoffee]

Hi Morgan,

Yeah I know about the limits and not to backup M. Our AV is exchange specific and working just fine. We have about 10 more users then you, but our email attactments tend to be between 50 and 150 Megs (CAD drawings and Artwork for production) so we have always had large mailboxes and public stores. We are over the 16 Gig limit now (wasnt before lunch). Backups are done nightly. Going to pull down the server and do a check of the edb and STM, defrag again and see whats what.
Thanks for the suggestions and help.
MrC

[Tedob1]

mlf i had the same problem with users never deleting anything so i configured all their clients to archive once a week to a network drive, then mounted their archive for them.

[Memnoch]

Just to be sure move those files then take the database off line and run eseutils on it. Then remount, if that is fine then do a full restart of the server. If possible offload the files to tape of external hard drive just in case.

If your exchange store is getting to that size I would recomend upgrading to exchange 2003 w/ SP2 as it now has a 73-74gb limit on the database.

But for the moment if possible why not exmerge some of the old mailbox's and impose limits on mailbox's? or write an article for your users on how to auto archive old items to a network folder for later backup?

Memnoch

[mohaughn]

Hate to go against what everybody else is saying, but you can safely delete the temp files created during a incomplete defrag attempt. Best practice would always have you moving something first, make sure that store stays mounted, and then go from there. There is absolutely no harm in stopping an eseutil /d on an exchange 2000+ system.

Basically exchange does not actually perform a defrag of the existing database. It creates a new database(the temp database) and copies all of the data from the old database to the new database in an unfragmented fashion. Once it is complete it deletes the original database, and moves the temp database into the location of the old original database. And you have a new unfragmented database. This is why a defrag can require as much as 120% free disk space as the original size of the store.

You can use the /t switch to specify the name and location of the temp files. It will not cause any problems to delete the temp files as long as the original database is in existance. Since it sounds like your Store came online after the reboot, you can delete without any issues.


It is also a misnomer to call it a fragmented database. In truth it is a database that has a significant amount of whitespace. Online database maintenance and manual deletion of objects does not remove the object from the database, the database never shrinks it only grows. Instead that page in the dB is just marked that it can be re-written. In my environment I've found that I usually maintain about 5-8GB of whitespace in any particular database. If it gets way up over this limit that is when we perform a defrag. You can watch the nightly online maintenance application log events to see how much whitespace exists in the database. The event ID is 1221, the text looks like this:

The database "xxxxxxxxx" has 6327 megabytes of free space after online defragmentation has terminated.


If you do not let online maintenance complete, running an offline defrag will get you very little.

Also, I've had information stores in exchange 2000 as large as 35GB.. The 16GB limit is only for exchange standard, not enterprise.

Exchange 2003 standard also does not support greater than 16GB in a database. You have to run SP2, and follow this article to get higher than that-
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/912375/

Enterprise Exchange 2003 of course does not have this problem.

[morganlefay]

Great information mohaughn...I didnt know that about defrags....

Thanks

Ok, it is Exchange 2000 on a SBS 2000 server.

The SBS has a 16 gig limit.

I always just move stuff around before deleting...just to make sure it is not required.

IMHO....Users should not use mailboxes for storage...thats what file servers are for, shared directories etc



MLF

[rapier57]

Originally posted here by morganlefay
IMHO....Users should not use mailboxes for storage...thats what file servers are for, shared directories etc

Got that right, MLF! You may also have a corporate policy for data retention that should be examined as applies to email. Just remind your users that anything they keep on the Exchange mailbox may be subpoenaed in a court case, or may be used against them in an HR event. If you are a public entity, anything store in mailboxes is also vulnerable to "freedom of information act" requests. Also, depending on your policy, the user may have no expectation of privacy (i.e.; the coporation owns that information).

Granted, some of that information is available in backups, depending on how long you maintain your rotation. I like short turnaround rotations, myself.

You can't produce something you don't have. Short retention policies rule!