Priv.edb Information Store will not free up space 1

[beerhunter2]

I am trying to free up space in the Private Information Store (currently have 300MB left). These are the steps that I have taken to date.

1) Asked users to delete unnecessary email. Some did, some didn't, you know the story.

2) Went to the users using the largest amount of space, and Archived their email to a certain date (say July 1, 2005). This freed up space according to Exchange Admin, but apparently not really.

3) Ran the database compression utility Eseutil. It did initially free up a bit of space, but not as much as I would have expected.

When I ran the compression utility earlier this spring (after also doing steps 1 & 2 above), I got back 2GB of space. This time, I only got back 600MB.

Is there some way that I can tell what is taking up the space in the information store, and who has it? At the rate it's filling up, the information store won't last another week.

Thanks in advance for all help and tips.

Help! I've fallen and I can't reach my beer.

 

[netometer]

I think that the command:

ESEUTIL.EXE /MS [database.edb]

should provide you with more detailed information about the usage of the space including info about the white space.
The first part of the report - "SLV SPACE DUMP" is for the STM file. The second - "SPACE DUMP" is for the EDB file.
I've used this command wuth Exchange 200/2003 so I can not guarantee that it will work with Exchange 5.5

Please, post the result if you decide to try it!

PS:What kind of beer do you like. I prefer MGD

NetoMeter

http://www.netometer.net

 

[zbnet]

faq10-6005

 

[beerhunter2]

Thanks for the info guys.
The "Deleted Item Retention" was set to 30 days, so for now, I reduced that to 1 day. Would this also affect email items that I have Archived to a .PST file?

netometer
I can not find the /MS option for Eseutil in Exchange 5.5 when I ran eseutil /?
I will do more research on eseutil command line options.

PS: I'm a Kokanee man myself.

Help! I've fallen and I can't reach my beer.

 

[zbnet]

The 'Deleted Item Retention' period you have set is for the private information store on the server. Any PSTs you may have are totally unaffected by server-side settings.

netometer has confused you - the version of eseutil that comes with 5.5 doesn't support the /MS parameter - the givaway was the bit that mentioned the STM file - Exchange 5.5 only has .edb files for its database.

Here is the definitive list of parameters supprted by eseutil for Exchange 5.5:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;182903

 

[beerhunter2]

Thanks for the help zbnet.

When I reduced the 'Deleted Iten Retention' period to 1 day, after the latest backup we went from 300MB free space to over 5GB.

I realize that PSTs are not affected by server side settings. I should have been more clear with my question. In my attempt to free up space, I Archived the mailboxes of those who had the largest mailboxes. After Archiving, I thought that I would see an immediate gain in space, but I didn't. So I think the 'Deleted Item Retention' period also retains recently Archived email as well.

Help! I've fallen and I can't reach my beer.

 

[zbnet]

Okay, what do you mean by Archived? Did you use ExMerge? Or AutoArchive from Outlook?

 

[beerhunter2]

I selected 'File > Archive' in Outlook to create a PST file.

Help! I've fallen and I can't reach my beer.

 

[zbnet]

It's a good question, I'm not sure whether email removed by Outlook's Archive command is affected by the deleted item retention period or not. By the looks of it, I would say not, as when it archives mail there is no trace of the items in either the Deleted Items folder nor in the Dumpster (the hidden folder that is maintained for the mailbox when you have a DIR setting).

I suspect that the effect you are seeing is as a result of SIS, and the fact that other people still have links to the mail items you are removing from the mailbox of some of the users (see the section on SIS in the FAQ I pointed you to).