Eseutil and the risks

[bettyb]

I see when my pub.edb defrags off-hours that I have 89 megs of space left. I have done some research and pulled down lots of Microsoft documentation on Eseutil. I do an arcserver brick level backup nightly. I am seriously considering running eseutil against the priv.edb & pub.edb

After reading some of the eseutil 'horror stories' on this forum and others, I am starting to get a little worried about this.

What are the risks? Is anyone out there doing this on a regular basis with success?

thank you for any input

 

[ReddLefty]

- Make sure you have a backup
- Make sure you have at least the same amount of free space of the file you are about to defrag


If you have no errors in your logs before you attempt this, I don't think you'll encounter any problems when you defrag.

Defrag is not a very complicated issue: ESEUTIL will open a new database (under some name), move all the current items into the new one while skipping the blanks in the original EDB, then it deletes the old one and renames the new one back to the old name....





"In space, nobody can hear you click..."

 

[fuego007]

I recommend against using the Eseutil, as do virtually all authors of books on Exchange (and Microsoft) unless: A. you have to in order to solve a serious problem and, B. you either know what you are doing, or have someone who does talking you through the process.

The background defrag, and scheduled process do a pretty good job of keeping the databases in good shape. The free space you are concerned about will be filled by new messages. The database will not increase in size until this space has been filled. Attempting to reclaim the space is an excersize in futility.

Anyone who would tell you that the eseutil can be used for routine maintenance of an Exchange server is steering you down the road to ruin.

Good luck,
Bob

p.s. Recommended reading (my recommendation, that is) is Exchange Server 5.5 Unleashed by Greg Todd, et al. and published by SAMS.

 

[bettyb]

Interesting responses. I have the "Microsoft Exchange 5.5 administrator's pocket consultant" that tells me I should do this periodically. I have "Mastering Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5" (Gerber) that never mentions it. I have a vendor who agrees with the pocket consultant (and I am not paying him to do this, but perhaps he sees $$'s in the cleanup work).

Guess I will have to step back and think this one out. thank you

 

[TravTrav]

If you do this, I would recommend having well over the amount of space that you have for your is's. And I have yet to see it work properly.

 

[DrWatson101]

I have used the eseutil successfully multiple times now.

It took me a couple of times to set the path correctly, but once I did, I just created a batch file to run it. Was I scared....you bet. But it worked without any problems.

I had one original priv.edb at 67 Gb that compressed down to 39 Gb and another 47 Gb priv.edb compressed 25 Gb. I am running it about every 6 months.

Unfortunately you do have stop your Exchange services to run it. Since we have implemented our inbox cleanup (Mailbox Mgr. Add in) deleting message’s over 75 days old I find it useful to regain the disk space. Also if you are setting the default location for the new edb accross a network drive your time to run it is quadrupled. It writes to it then copies it back over.

Reddlefty is also correct in his post.

Once the edb grows the eseutil is the only method I know to compact it and regain the space recovered from deleting those messages.


Exchange Administrator
ADTRAN Inc.
Huntsville AL

 

[bettyb]

Thank you everyone for all of your responses. I actually copied our priv.edb and pub.edb to another location and tested it. I have been doing some research too.

I think I should run:

isinteg (no switches) first, to make sure all is healthy

and then run eseutil against the priv and pub

I was thinking of trying the pub.edb first, coming on-line, testing it, and then going back down to do priv.edb. Naturally, this will all occur off-hours, during low activity times.

 

[Maritime]

Hi bettyb, I am at he same place you were when you started this thread. I would like to know how everything worked out. I have a dirve that's about 4G and my priv.edb has taken up almost all of the space. I know have about 210MD frre on the drive. I was hoping that running Eseutil.exe would help? Did it work for you?

 

[zbnet]

There is a difference in opinion as to whether ESEUTIL should be run regularly or not - as you've discovered. It originates from the pre 5.5 versions, 4.0 and 5.0. In both those previous releases, the online defrag wasn't up to much, so regular offline defraging became necessary just because if you didn't you got errors that forced you to do it sooner rather than later anyway. But in 5.5 the online defrag was seriously improved, and now runs pretty much without user intervention. Therefore the received wisdom is to leave it to its own devices unless and until you get DB errors reported. I've managed hundreds (literally) of 5.5 servers in the last 6 years, and only done a handful of ESEUTIL operations on production servers. The rest are chugging away quite happily.

 

[Maritime]

I understand what you are saying, but with the critical level of disk space that I am running with, only 200MB left from a 4GB drive, it's troubling. I need a solution to reclaim the space. My Drive is mirrored to increasing storage might also be a reconfiguration nightmare. Most of my users use PST files which means that I do not have a whole lot of mail on the server. I really need a way to reclaim the space. Any further suggestions would be welcomed.
Thanks

 

[Maritime]

I understand what you are saying, but with the critical level of disk space that I am running with, only 200MB from a 4GB drive, it's troubling. I need a solution to reclaim the space. My Drive is Mirrored to increasing storage will also be a reconfiguration nightmare. Most of my users use PST files which means that I do not have a whole lot ofd mail on the server. I really need a way to reclaim the space. Any further suggestions would be welcomed.
Thanks

 

[bettyb]

Maritime,

I ended up putting this effort aside. As zbnet states there is a difference of opinion of when you should run these utilities - - and I had some major concerns about really screwing up my database.

Sorry I was not able to provide extra assistance here.

 

[wacobd]

I have run eseutil to defrag my 5.5 server hundreds of times and have not had a problem yet, but MS and others do say that this can be a destructive operation.

ISINTEG is another good tool, although it does not defrag or anything, it does check your database for errors/warnings. You may need to run this multiple times (until Errors/Warnings are 0 or until you get the same number twice in a row).

I would say as long as your database is not corrupted or giving you errors or warnings then do not run eseutil unless you have a good backup and/or feel comfortable with your server. Run ISINTEG often to fix your database and everything should be OK.

However with Maritime, this does not help that much Sorry.

 

[fuego007]

If you have limited space on your hard drive and need a way to improve the situation, running the eseutil to defrag the databases will not solve your problem. The reason is thus; the online defrag process compacts the database and reorganizes the data to make records contiguous. It does not release the resulting free space to the OS, as an offline defrag will. HOWEVER, the space freed by the online process is utilized before any more disk space is used.

Therefore, the solution to your problem is not a defrag, but more disk space. I recommend you add a high capacity disk drive to your system and then run the Exchange Optimizer.

Please feel free to contact me at fuego007@mindspring.com if you need further assistance and don't want to wait for the next time I log onto Tek-Tips!

By the way, the 'pocket consultant' mentioned in a previous post is the only reference I've ever heard of that recommends using the Eseutil for routine maintenance. Every other expert I know recommends leaving the databases alone unless you have a problem. The only exception is the use of the Isinteg, but even that should only be used if you suspect a problem.

Good luck, and Happy New Year,
Bob

 

[obsidian]

Fuego007,
ESEUtil IS an offline defragmenter. It can only be used when the Information Stores and Exchange services are shut down. And there are several books by "Experts" that do recommend using eseutil. As for "releasing space back to the OS", you really have no clue. ESEutil compresses the database (reads a page, skips the spaces, writes the page to a temp db, completes and renames the temp to replace the priv.edb, etc.) and compression can result in a 20% plus gain in drive space. The result depends on the amount of time and traffic since the last defrag. If the database is smaller, then it consumes less drive space. Hmmm.. I have been an Exchange Admin for 8 years, and I CURRENTLY manage hundreds of Exchange servers of 5.5 and newer flavors. ESEutil works.

 

[AlexIT]

I run ESEUTIL weekly (for past 8 years at least!) I have never had a failure of any kind...never even thought it would cause a problem. I run ISINTEG first (couple times if needed, until no errors are found) to fix the database(s) then eseutil priv.edb and eseutil pub.edb...

alex