Should I run a offline defrag

[lpryor]

Hi.

We are about to go through our AD and delete 150-200 users with mailboxes. My questions to tek-tips.com are:


Should I let exchange cleanup agent do its job or should I run a offline defrag?

Secondly, our exchange program files lives on D drive and the databases live on F drive. As the D drive (which contains esutil) doesn't have the required 150% free space for the offline defrag, is there anyway I can run this from the F drive as it has the required space?

Kind regards,

Lee Pryor

http://www.leepryor.com

 

[N0ktar]

Yes, you can tell Exchange which drive to use for defrag.
Before you defrag though, perform a space dump with ESEUTIL /MS to determine the amount of hard drive space you can reclaim and determine if it's worth the sweat. Make sure you backup your store before you proceed.
Also if you have never done defrag before this may help:

http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Exchange-ISINTEG-ESEUTIL.html

 

[58sniper]

I'd do an offline once you've purged the mailboxes. Since you've deleted more than 100 mailboxes, you're probably a good size org with a sizeable database. Best to schedule the defrag for off hours.

I'd recommend you backup before AND after the defrag - just to be safe.

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Want to know how email works? Read for yourself -

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt

 

[lpryor]

Can you eseutil/MS switch during the day with the DB up?

 

[Ogi]

Don't forget that once you delete the mailboxes they'll stay in the system for the time that's been defined (7 or 10 days) I think by default. So you won't clear loads of data out instantly.

Also, if you close Exchange down, you can copy the MDBDATA folder to another server or drive and run the ESEUTIL utility. Then copy the folder back upon completion, this ensure a before and after copy. Although probably best to do a tape backup.

HTH,
Carl.

 

[N0ktar]

Can you eseutil/MS switch during the day with the DB up?

No, you cannot. IS must stop for Eseutil to run but the utility doesn't take long to scan even a large database.