Defrag of Priv.EDB question

[dpu]

Will defraging the priv.edb database shrink it? If so how do I do this? The priv.edb is getting too large.

 

[zbnet]

Yes, but it'll start to grow again immediately it receives new mail. Don't bother unless you have a disk space issue on the server - it takes downtime.

Check your application event log for 1221 events (one per store) which will tell you how much white space you have.

 

[dpu]

Based on that eventid it doesn't look like defragging is going to make that much of a difference. I do have an issue with disk space. I recently moved the page file on this partition which is where the exchserv files exist and I moved the pagefile to another partition on the server. It freed up 2gb of space on that partition. However,now I seem to have an issue with outgoing mail sitting in the que and not being delivered. The IMS is running and I have restarted it several times in hopes of clearing the queue.

 

[Alshrim]

You can manually delete the queue - which is better than stopping and starting the services -- but it looks like you'll have to get into blacklisting certain domains or email addresses.

I know that there are some domain lists floating around here .. may wanna check the FAQ's sections - just to see if there faqs about it.

Most of these queue issues are due to spam mail coming to your server on addresses that don't exist anymore, and your server is trying to send a notification back to the sender that the account isn't there - only the reply to addies are bogus .. so it stays in queue for 24 hours before finally dropping it...

Alshrim
System Administrator
MCSE, MCP+Internet

 

[avalanche808]

Hey DPU!,

I had the same problem. If you are running Exchange standard and your outgoing queue is stuck, you have probably crossed the 16GB limitation. Check the size of your Priv.edb and see if it's larger than 16GB. If it is, the only way to reduce it is to have your users start permanently deleting old emails (Inbox, sent and deleted items) or create PST files to transfer off their old items. Once you get the space that you need, (you can check when Exchange does an online defrag, eventid 1221 to see how much free space you can expect), you will need to run an offline defrag to reclaim that space and that will shrink your Priv.edb. Be warned, offline defrags usually take about 15 hours (initial database backup + offline defrag + final database backup). If you need help with the offline defrag, let me know. It's really simple to do, but takes a hell of a long time...

 

[dpu]

Thanks for the input I have my users deleting their emails so I'll see if I can recover any hard drive space.

 

[zbnet]

Okay, but obviously having your users delete emails won't recover any hard disk space, the priv.edb will stay the same size - only the amount of white space in the db will grow. This isn't a problem, that's how it's supposed to work.