Exchange DB at it's limit

[charlie2908]

Hi all
I have a customer running SBS 2k as the DC and exchange server. The exchange DB keeps hitting its limit and I have been asked to find a more permanent solution to prevent this happening.
One solution suggested is to add a 2003 server (standard) running Exchange as a member server to the domain, and then have this server running as the second storage group database.
I don't think this solution will work, A. because I know how SBS has conflicts with a standard server on the domain at the best of times and B. I don't think you can add a second storage group to SBS Exchange but I need to confirm this.
Am I right in thinking that it is only Exchange Enterprise server that can run multiple storage groups?

Any help would be appreciated.

Charlie

 

[moony8272]

Charlie

What you can do is to enforce limits on mailboxes once you have the database down to a reasonable size. If this is not possible is to have a member server running Enterprise Edition of exchange because this has no database size limits.



Moony

 

[charlie2908]

If mailbox limits were set at the beginning then this would of course be ok, however its a bit late do to do that now.
The cost of Enterprise server is massive though,
Would another standard server running exchange sit on the domain as a member server? From there migrate some of the mailboxes over to that server and change the delivery of the mailbox in AD to a second storage group work?

 

[sab4you]

its never too late to enforce limits.

start of by doing a policy to notify users if they are above the limit.

then give em a week or so, then change the policy to disallow send/receive above the limit.

This way you can do everybody at once (with the policy) and gives them some notice to clean up their mailboxes.

 

[dput]

I don't think your scenario of adding a new Standard Exchange Server will help. You still have the same limit. I don't think you will be able to try and seperate users between the two unless you are going to run 2 different e-mail domains, otherwise, how would you determine which one to hit for user A vs. user B.

How many users do you have?

I think you either have to move up to Exchange Advanced if you have a lot of users, which should not be the case with SBS, or you are going to have to work with the users to get them down to a reasonable limit on size. We have over 300 users on our Standard Edition Exchange and we have plenty of room, but we run with limits.

Dan

 

[kooma]

What is the DB size limit on Exchange 2000 Standard?

 

[zoeythecat]

16GB

 

[IS300]

We've had this problem happen to us a few times now, most recently yesturday afternoon.

Once it hits the 16GB limit, the store will not mount. Users will have to clean their mailboxes immediately, but since the store won't mount, that causes a problem.

However, there is a way to temporarily increase it to 17 GB in order for you to be able to mount the store, tell users to get their act together and delete any large emails that they don't need. Users here send a lot of video clips to each other, so you can see how quickly it can add up. This is a temporary fix though, I would not recommend it as a solution.

Read this Microsoft article:

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=828070

It will tell you how to defrag the database as well, freeing up some more room. After that, I would definately recommend implementing some limits to users so that you don't get stuck in this situation again.

It is not worth brining down your entire organization's email because some users want to keep their personal email for later viewing.

 

[PScottC]

You might want to contact Quest software regarding their Exchange Archive Manager. It can offline old mail data for your users without forcing them to do anything.

[URL unfurl="true"]http://wm.quest.com/products/archivemanagerexchange/[/url]

PSC

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