Defrag Echange Server

[jseman]

Can I safely defrag my exchange server with a utility; DiskKeeperLite?????  This is not for defragging any Exchange files themselves, but just to defrag the entire hard disks in the server.

 

[dhalerci]

I've run DiskKeeper Lite on my Exchange Server with no problems at all. I try to run it once in a while. You might want to consider running it during a time when you can take the Exchange service offline, however, I found that was not necessary.<br><br>David

 

[jakess]

i have been told NOT to defrag an exchange server, so maybe we can have some more clarity on this thread

 

[lardum]

I wouldn't run DiskKeeper on an Exchange server.<br><br>Exchange contains a utility for defragging the databases, its called ESEUTIL.<br><br>Run it by:<br>ESEUTIL /d /ds /tc:\exchsrvr\dbbackup /p <br><br>Where:<br>/DS = The directory<br>/ISPRIV = Information Store (Mailboxes)<br>/ISPUB = Information Store (Public Folders) <br><br>Be sure that you have enough disk space free, since the defrag creates a copy of the database when running.<br><br>Regards<br><br>Lars<br>

 

[PghMikeH]

We're talking about two different types of defragmenting, folks.<br><br>ESEUTIL is a utility to defragment your Exchange database. DiskKeeper is a utility to defragment the hard drive.<br><br>I believe its a good idea to do both on a periodic basis. However, I'd use ESEUTIL first, back up the drive, and then run DiskKeeper. <p> Mike Hillwig<br><a href=mailto:mike@hypermike.com>mike@hypermike.com</a><br><a href=

http://www.hypermike.com>Hypermike.com</a><br>I've

done more R5 deployments than I care to think about.

 

[royalmail]

Any reason why I shouldn't use the Windows 2000 disk defragmanter tool to defragment a drive that stores the Exchange databases?

 

[Kblack0188]

If the drive is an a SAN I would say not to defrag it. The reason being is that most SANs utilize random reads and writes and the data is defraged which inturn helps performance because the SAN reads and writes to the drives in sequence instead uf multiple drives at once. If the database is on a single drive or a local raid set you can defrag it. Allthough you probably wont notice much performance gains if that is the reason for the defrag. By the way how big is your database?

 

[chrisab]

I wouldn't do it either as it could corrupt the database. Now, if you have the database files on a different drive (which is HIGHLY recommended), you can safely defrag the OS drive.

 

[royalmail]

Thanks.

It is only a 4GB or so database. I don't want to defrag the database, just defrag the volume that the database resides on.

The server has hardware RAID5.

The database doesn't reside on the boot or system volume, but I don't want to corrupt it so will skip the defrag I think.