ebd and stm files - confused?? 1

[johnisotank]

Hi all,

We are using Exchange on Small Business Server and have a 75GB database limit.

I have been checking the edb file daily and it has been at 50.53GB for weeks. I am not surprised that it is not increasing because I got staff to archive a lot of items when it reached this number and as I understand it Exchange DB will not get shrink as people delete stuff.

ive only just started checking the stm file and it is currently at 9.57GB.

I have two questions if people wouldn't mind helping.

1. Does the stm file count towards my 75GB limit
2. Why would the date modified of my edb be 12-Mar-09 yet the stm date modified is current time?

Thanks for any help.

John

 

[58sniper]

The amount of data is based on the .edb and .stm files combined, minus the amount of whitespace mentioned in the event 1221 logs in the application event log.

You're correct in that the file sizes won't decrease as people delete and/or archive items.

That time stamp difference is not uncommon.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[johnisotank]

Thanks Pat, that helps a lot.

John

 

[markdmac]

Just so you understand what the STM file is, that is a streaming file. Incoming mail passes through the STM and is moved into the EDB. The exception to this is when mail is read by a non MAPI client. So any mail that is first read in OWA or another client gets stuck in the STM.

White space should EVENTUALLY get cleaned up by online defrag but it is very slow to happen. If you are really hurting for space, you can do an offline defrag to a temp file to get it back.

Refer to my FAQ for how to do that. faq955-5581


I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

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[johnisotank]

Excellent, thanks a lot Mark

Ill have a read

Cheers

 

[zbnet]

And just an FYI, Exchange 2007 and 2010 have removed the STM file from the dataabse, so it's just the EDB file again (like Exchange 5.5 was).

 

[Zelandakh]

It is called progress!