logs are taking too much space Help!! 1

[favit]

Hi,

I running exchange server 2000 on a sbs2k server. I have noticed that my disk space is very low. I am doing a full backup of the information store in order to flush the logs. I have recently noticed that my priv.edb and prive.stm are 1.5 gigs each. I thought by me doing the backup of the information store would have these log files small? What can I do to get back disk space? Can someone please show me how or have a tutorial in how to do this?

Most Appreciative,

 

[Zelandakh]

Erm, no.

Priv.edb and priv.stm are the DATABASE files, not the logs. You can move them to a larger partition (either one or separately) inside Exchange System Manager. Do NOT be tempted to move them manually.

 

[favit]

Can I do something to get these two logs smaller in size?

 

[Zelandakh]

At the risk of repeating myself, these are the DATABASE files, not the logs. Those 2 files are your Exchange databases files. They are the accumulation of every single person's emails, contacts, mailboxes etc.

You can shrink them using eseutil /d with the mail store offline. You will shrink them by the amount of space listed in event id 1221 in your application event log for the PRIVATE store (not the public store).

If that figure is 30% or more of your mail store (in your case 900MB) then it is worth doing. If it is less than 900MB natural expansion will make the defrag a waste of time. How much space do you have left and what other partitions have you got?

 

[favit]

I have 2 gigs left on that partition. I do have another external hard drive I can hook up? The harddrive is 120gigs. I can move those two database files on to it? What do you think?

 

[Zelandakh]

External hard drive? How is it connected, what fault tolerance is it?

If it is a RAID array then probably go for it. If no fault tolerance, do you trust your whole Exchange store to a single external disk? How many users?

 

[favit]

Its connected via usb 2.0 and I am always backing the exchange infornation store to a backup tape anyways. I have 12 users. What do you think I should do? I have a dell power edge 2600 and when I first configured the server I gave partition where the O.S was going to be intalled on on a 12gig partition, which the exchange database is on and the other 86gigs, I used it for storage making it a 100gigs of storage capacity. All drives are scusi and yes they are all fault tolerant using raid. What should I do? Can I extend the 86gig partition even more and if yes how can I do that?

 

[Zelandakh]

Hold on then. So C is a 12GB partition from a SCSI array inside the 2600?

Have a look in Disk Management in Admin Tools. Check if there is 86GB of space left and let me know.

 

[favit]

Yes there is, a 86gig partition, which it is being used for storage of files and folders that users have. The exchange is also a file server. I know it wasnt a great idea, but these people dont have any money to get another server, so I am working with what I have for now. Can we extend the 86gig partition even though is being used?

 

[Zelandakh]

How much free space in that 86GB partition?

 

[favit]

76gigs left because of all the files and folder on it.

 

[Zelandakh]

ok, try this.

On the 86GB partition, create a top level folder called Stores.

Go to Exchange System Manager. Drill down to the Server. Choose properties. In there is the location of both the EDB and the STM. Click browse one at a time and choose the new folder Stores. Change both of them and hit apply.

NOTE - this will take your Exchange Server offline.

Once you've done that, you'll have 3GB more on C and 3GB less of E, F or whatever it is. On a 2600 that should leave Exchange stopped for less than 10 minutes.

Job done, celebrate with a cup of coffee.

 

[favit]

Almost, can I extend the 76gig and make a new partition just for those database files only, because I dont want to mix it with all files they have.

 

[Zelandakh]

If you've shared out the users folders, can't you have a top level folder that isn't shared? Or have you shared out the whole disk?

See if you can resize the 86GB partition downwards by 20GB and then make a 20GB partition for Exchange. You probably can't without destroying the data, but always worth a try.

 

[favit]

I have shared out the whole 86gigs. How can I resize the 86gig partition downwards? Is that possible? I do have backups of all the data on that 86GB partition.

 

[Zelandakh]

If it is just one share, unshare it, drop all of the data into a folder called DRIVE or whatever and reshare it. If it is more than one share, reshare all folders carefully.

Then in root, create the Store folder and don't share it. Then move the stores as specified above.