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Exchange Information store growth

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by seppos

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Hi

I would like to know is it normal, that our Exchange Server 2000 information store which has about 100 mailboxes has 12 GB big priv1.edb mailbox database?

For me 12 GB database sounds very large. We did "eseutil" once, but the database didn't get any smaller. All users have unlimited space in their mailbox.

It was previously running in mixed mode (Exchange 2000 and 5.5 at the same time) and now it's only one Exchange 2000 in native mode.
Should I try eseutil now again? Didn't try with this new setup.

2 replies

by timwalsh

When you get down to it, that only averages out to about 120Mb per user.

If you already ran eseutil to compact the database (recently), chances are that running it again will not gain you any more space(even though you have merged mailboxes from 2 different servers). All references I have read state that eseutil is NOT meant to be used as a preventative maintenance tool (i.e. on a frequent basis). Running eseutil to compact the database only makes sense if: 1) a large number of mailboxeshave been delelted since the last compaction process; or 2) You significantly reduce the size of a large number of mailboxes .

Start digging. Look at sizes of individual mailboxes (especially power users). I have seen individual mailboxes of over 1Gb (this user never deleted anything). Look at how users are using Outlook and look at their Outlook settings.

Many users don't realize that just deleting an email may not get rid of it unless either Outlook is set to empty the Deleted Items folder on exit, or they manually empty this folder. I have seen Deleted Items folders with 15,000 items in them.

If you find that users are saving EVERYTHING, you may want to institute mailbox size limits.
Try getting users to archive old email (at least some) in personal folders files (.pst files).

Hope this gives you some ideas.

by seppos

Hi

When I count mailboxes, they are totally 4-5 GB but the database is still 12 GB. That's why I am wondering if everything is all right. Many users use much more space than what they should use. It would be fine to have some kind of util whichrearranges the database, as I see that the 12 GB database is going bigger all the time.

Now we have W2K SP3 and Exch SP3.

Is it possible, that Exchange keeps some old messages inside the database without deleting them and freeing space?

What tools should I use to check if the database is ok?

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