Defrag after hitting 16GB limit

[nashcom]

We're running ExchangeServer 2003 Standard (bas edition - no service packs). It hit the 16GB limit, and I temporarily increased this using the known registry entry. I got users to delete loads of stuff from their mailboxes, and empty their deleted items. The message store seems to indicate that there is only 10GB left. I've run an offline defrag using ESEUTIL, but the edb file is still 13GB and the stm file is over 2GB, so it's not really claimed any free space. The last time the on-line utility ran, event 1221 said it had around 17MB to compact, which isn't much!
I've set the retention time for the mailbox store to 0 days, and unticked the option that restricts deleting stuff until after a backup.

I'm going to kick-off anoter on-line scan, but is there any way to reduce the size of the edb and stm files (they're so close to 16GB in total) or will they continue to fill up white-space?

 

[ntinlin]

Nothing else you can do really.

Any particular reason you don't want to install SP2 and get the higher store limits?

Neill

 

[nashcom]

No - I've recently inherited the server. However, I need to sort out the backup first! I'm reluctant to attempt an upgrade to SP2 without having a backup system in place beforehand! Is the upgrade to SP2 straightforward? I just want to make sure I''m not going to hit the 16GB limit again before I get around to the SP2 upgrade.

 

[Mighty]

I hit the 16GB limit a couple of hours ago and did the upgrade to SP2. No problems so far. Just downloaded the service pack and ran it.

Mighty

 

[58sniper]

Don't defrag. Back it up first. Then, install SP2 and increase the limit to something higher.

The physical file sizes have little to do with the database limit. It's the amount in the files. (total of the .edb and .stm files minus the amount in the 1221 event log entry).

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP

 

[nashcom]

Thanks everyone.

I haven't read the documentation with SP2. Is it just a case of stopping all the Exchange services, backing up the Exchange database (I'm not sure of how best to do this - is it normal to just do a DOS copy of the edb and stm files, or is there some sort of routine built into Exchange?) then applying SP2? Are there any known problems I may encounter?

I'm hoping my Exchnage database files won't grow any more until I can do the SP2 upgrade - hopefully at the weekend. I find the analysis tools I've used to be fairly limiting, but it's probably because I'm not that familiar with Exchange. For example, one user deleted everything from their mailbox, but their Mailbox properties still showed a number of items totalling a few hundred KB. When I totted-up the total size of mailboxes in the Exchange System Manager, it now comes to about 9GB, but the raw database files are 15.8GB, and I haven't seen any mention in the event logs of an on-line process that has cleaned anything like that amount.

 

[Zelandakh]

No.
Leave the Exchange services running, use ntbackup to back it up. Don't DOS copy. Once ntbackup finishes you've got a backup of the store.

Then install SP2 - not heard of a problem installing that. It takes you to 18GB immediately and there is a reg entry to take it to whatever you like up to 75GB.

9GB to 15.8GB means a long retention time but you can't get that back without a defrag and that's a bad idea at the moment for you - get on with a backup and SP2 and you'll be home free. An hour to back it up and an hour to SP it and you're done.