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Moving the Exchange data store

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by joemoran

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Folks,
This question is in regards to relocating the Exchange 5.5 Information Store. I have Exchange 5.5 (over NT 4) running on a Compaq Proliant DL380.
Here is the deal. The public and private IS are both running on drive D: which is a hardwareRAID 5 (Compaq SmartArray) with 4 spindles x 18 GB drives, yielding 52 GB of space.
Obviously, that is over 3X what Exchange 5.5 will support, and about 5X what I will need in the foreseeable future. Don?t ask me why I set it up that way. I know Exchange 2000 breaks past 16 GB, but I don?t plan to upgrade anytime in the near future, and even if I do, I will still not need anything close to 52 GB.
Therefore, I would like to get that drive D: down to 3 spindles, for 36 GB of space, which lets me use the fourth drive as a warm spare. However, I would like to do this without completely blowing away and redoing the server.
I am wondering if I can simply do a backup of the contents of D: and then reconfigure the array, removing one spindle. Then, format the drive (still as drive D: ) and then restore the contents of the volume.
Or, should I run the Exchange Optimizer and make it relocate the IS stuff to drive C: or drive E: (mirrored pairs) where the transaction logs, Directory, and other stuff reside. Then I could proceed with reconfiguring the RAID 5 array as above, and when it is complete, use the Optimizer to move the infostore back to D. This would probably take (a lot) longer, but it would be neater, I think.
Would anyone that has experienced a similar scenario be able to comment? Has anyone been successful using one of these methods, or am I screwed and will I have to re-do the whole server from scratch? I have not found anything on TechNet that really speaks to what I want to do, so I am hesitant to undertake this without hearing from some folks who have done something similar.
Any comments or advice are greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Joe

9 replies

by tony

Hi Joe.

Believe it or not this is one of the biggest errors made when first installing/setting up an Exchange Server.
I had this issue originally. (Until I upgraded and our company bought 6 more companie and added 450 users).

What I did was did a full backup. Stopped all the Exchange Services (to ensure all details are kept as is, and to unlock the files). Remove your partitions and re-create them again as you want them.
Then do a full restore (to ensure all details are kept as is.) Trying to keep the drive letters the same if possible (to avoid any un-needed extra work). Then when all is correct. Re-enable your services. Hey presto!
All Done
The reason for doing a proper backup is to keep all permissions, folders, and others all as they should be.
Hope this helps

tony

by mckaytech

You could probably do it either way but I think the Optimizer approach has a little bit more risk only because I've had it puke on me in rare circumstances and leave the databases in one place with the registry thinking they are somewhere else.

The only thing I would add to the answer above is that I usually do BOTH an on-line backup (first) and then an off-line backup that includes all the transaction logs as well as the priv.edb, pub.edb and dir.edb databases. The on-line backup will truncate the logs (if circular logging is disabled) and make sure the database is in a consistent state. Then you can shut the Information Store down cleanly and that will commit all the remaining logs. I've always been able to find a way back home when I have both on-line and off-line backups but I hate to rely on just one or the other because weird things do happen from time to time.

paul

by soekratis

Joe,

I couldn't agree more than what was suggested by Tony & Paul. I have applied the same formula sometime last year and my exchange server is running smoothly still. By the way, i did run the optimizer once
everything was restored.

regards
Soekratis

by tony.colgrove

I agree with above.
Why I am adding my 2 cents:
Ex 5.5 Enterprise does not have the 16GB limit.
Also-
Ex 2000 server does have the same 16GB IS limit (along with allowing only one Storage Group and one Mailbox Store)
Ex 2000 Enterprise does not have the 16GB IS limit and allows for the multiple storage groups and multiple stores.

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