Datastores and Defrags

[NpatelTSP]

If I have two separated (logical and physical) drives that are holding two exchange data stores (Let’s call them user and super-users) and I want to defrag just one store (users). While I take the first drive offline (Turning off services and so forth for that data store) for a defrag, will my users on the second data store be able to send and receive e-mails or better yet, can I even do this with out any problems? What will happen to the e-mails being sent to the users who are on the store that is offline?

 

[zbnet]

You should consider an offline defragmentation only if many users are moved from the Exchange 2003 server or after a database repair. Performing offline defragmentation when it is not needed could result in decreased performance.

 

[NpatelTSP]

Thanks Zbnet, but I am in intrested in created another data store. I know I could create a storage group too and that storage groups have diffrent log files while data stores that are under one storage group share a log file.

My question is about data stores.

If I have two(2) or more data stores, under one storage group and want to dismount one of the storage groups to do an offline defrag of that storage group. Could that be done or does exchange not work like that? I can defrag by data stores or does it have to be by Storage groups or is an all or nothing defrag?

Basiclly, I am asking if there is away I can defrag in segments rather then all at once.

 

[xmsre]

Eseutil operates on a store. Why would you even consider it in your case? Just create a new store, nove all the mailboxes, and dismount/delete the old one. You recover whitespace with the following advantages over Eseutil:

1. You don't need to take a store offline.
2. Only the mailboxes that are actually in transit at a given point in time are impacted (4 threads/mialboxes by default)
3. Single Instance of Storage is maintained.
4. The space required is equal to the logical size of your database vs. 110% of the physical size for eseutil.