Deleting MDBDATA log files with Circular Logging

[SpecSys]

I have enabled circular logging to alleviate some spacial issues we have on our server. I know I will get crap from you guys from not having a backup system that backs up exchange, but that cannot be helped right now. IWhat I absoultely need to be able to is clean off these .log files and get space back on our server. There are 12 gb of them right now dating back almost 1 year. Now that I have circular logging enabled, how do I delete the unneeded log files and which ones do I delete? Would be helpful to move these to another server rather than delete, or is that pointless and not going to do any good?

 

[MarkSe]

The safest and best way, take a storage group level backup using NTBackup, this will purge the transaction logs and is the BEST and only really Microsoft recommended way.

Not really that familiar with circular logging as I don't like to live on the edge (I work in IT . Someone may be able to clarify if we still write to the base log file (e00.log etc) and if the eseutil /mh will show anything? I would suggest using MH to see what logs are required and then delete everything except the edb00 and the range required ...as stated in the MH output.*****Adding disclaimer to this paragraph, I can go off and test this to check if you like?)******.

 

[SpecSys]

Right now we are really in a situation where we cannot back things up, and in fact have not backed things up for a very long time. That is a bad thing, I know. I am the IT here, although I'm not formally trained, I have 2 years experience. I wish we could do a backup but for various reasons it's not possible. That being the case, I'd LIKE to be able to just highlite and delete the files I don't need, but I don't want to do anything that will crash the system or lose data.

 

[buztwet]

I'm in the same type situation SpecSys, so if you figure anything out - let me know. We have no Exchange Agent running with our backup, so Exchange is not backed up. I can't buy exchange agent till the new year so I have to make due until then. I have 20Gig of space being used up by the log files and exchange keeps shutting down b/c of it. I have enabled circular logging hoping to just keep exchange running till 2004 when I can install better backup. How long is circular logging going to keep me out of the woods? Any other ideas on how I can free up space?

 

[dgarner58]

if i recall correctly you can safely delete those transaction logs if you shut down all exchange related services. the problems can occur if you just delete them with everything still up and running. as far as not being able to backup...unless it is a money situation i don't see why you couldn't just use the nt backup. it is by default exchange aware. everytime you backup...either to tape or another disk with nt backup and it gets the information store it purges the transaction logs.

if you can't backup then so be it. have everyone log out of exchange...shut down the services and delete the files. i had to do this once...it had no adverse affects. if you are scared of doing this...don't delete them..cut and paste them to a drive on a different server and keep them until you are conviced all is well...then delete them permanantly.

 

[SpecSys]

If you load up ntbackup and do the quick backup there, it WILL delete those files. I was hesitent to do this because it wasn't a true backup method and I wasn't sure how easy it would be, but it was a piece of cake do use ntbackup and it cleared up those log files. Now circular logging is enabled and working.