Exchange sucking up all my HD space

[jdannan]

Well let's see, my Exchange DB is sucking all my hard drive space away.

Currently the Database Size in Limit GB is set to 26.
The db files are:
priv1.edb = 18,831,516 KB
priv1.stm = 13,457,416 KB

I'm trying to stop the DB from taking all my HD space. This is getting really frustrating since I'm waiting on a new server to arrive, and then i'll be moving most of the file server data to that new server.

What can I do to stop Exchange from putting my C: drive at 0kb free?

Please help! Thanks for your response, I hope I can solve this issue quickly.

 

[58sniper]

Tell your users to stop using email?

You certainly should move the databases off of c: to keep the server from having serious problems.....

Have you run a backup from an Exchange aware application to flush all of the transaction log files?

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP
Want to know how email works? Read for yourself -

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt

 

[markdmac]

As Pat has suggested, get the transaction logs flushed. Also, have users empty deleted items and try an offline defrag.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

 

[Zelandakh]

Cut deleted item retention time, wait for online defrag and confirm the white space. No sense doing an offline.

How big is the volume, how much free space and is there anything else you can move like pagefile etc?

 

[markdmac]

No sense doing an offline.

I will resectfully disagree with Zelandakh on this one. Waiting for the online defrag is not as immediate when faced with limited hard drive space and imminent server crashes.

If you frequently delete mailboxes then I think a scheduled offline defrag is the way to go.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

 

[Zelandakh]

OK, Mark makes me question my reasoning. If you are woefully short of disk space then yes, I agree with Mark that you should do an offline defrag (though you'll need to use /t and point to a remote network share). If you've still got enough disk space then you could leave the offline defrag as you'll then get white space inside that can be monitored.

Thanks for the sanity check Mark.

 

[fuego007]

Performing an offline defrag to a network share would take quite a while with an 18GB priv. You'd be just as well of letting the online defrag run overnight.

Try to get your users to archive anything older than 180 days. That should free up a lot of space. Unless you're planning to continually add drive space, you might want to consider implementing mailbox size limits. Many organizations use a limit of 50MB (50MB warning, 60MB disallow send, 65MB disallow send and receive), with larger mailboxes for those higher up. Most places I've been also allow users whose jobs entail large amounts of email to have larger boxes, but with management approval.

 

[58sniper]

Archiving isn't an answer if you're trying, like most businesses, to avoid .pst files.

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP
Want to know how email works? Read for yourself -

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt

 

[Zelandakh]

fuego - online defrag won't recover disk space though. Archiving similarly won't free up any space.

50MB quota? Eek, that wouldn't cover one email in my org, let alone a whole mailbox.

 

[markdmac]

50MB quota? Eek, that wouldn't cover one email in my org, let alone a whole mailbox.

You said it! My quota is 2GB and I hit the limit all the time. Of course I get about 200 emails a day which does nto help.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

 

[Zelandakh]

I removed limits - it is generally the senior staff who hit them so I speak to their managers and then theirs. "They need to housekeep or they can't send more emails". "But they need to - increase the limit". "Give me more money for hardware or they can't". "ok".

Cool.

1.4TB of space for the stores at the mo. Increasing that to 4.2TB across 30 spindles for the stores later this year.

Well, no sense doing it half heartedly!!

 

[Spirit]

All you can do is delete a lot of mail (target Size not quantity) then run a defrag as discussed.

You asked "Exchange from putting my C: drive at 0kb free?"
so alternatively you could stick another harddrive in there and move the files to the D:\

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/821915/en-us

also for you new server have a wee look at exchange optimized installation I've never seen the .edb and .stm files on the c:\

Iain

In a side note 4.2TB JINGS!!!!!!!!!! But no doubt in 5 years we'll read this thread and think, thats less than the MD's mail alone!

 

[Zelandakh]

c is the default drive installation for vanilla Exchange. It is of course prudent to move it to another drive and the TLs to yet another.

I've got one room of 12 people who need an Exchange 2003 store on their own (recommendation is up to 50GB per store).I'm hoping 2007 will make all of my problems go away!!

 

[jdannan]

Ok, thank you everyone for your responses.

I have a new server that arrived yesterday which I will be moving 100gb of data off the current server which runs Exchange, and moving it to the new server.

So this will free up a lot of space on the 2nd partition. I plan on moving the database to the larger partition, and from what you have explained, should I run an offline defrag of the database once I move it to the larger partition?

Let me know if I'm understanding correctly. I'm also going to go around and check people's Mailboxes for Deleted Items to see if they can be dumped. Unfortunately in my business we have to keep a good majority of every piece of mail we generate. We can't just start deleting items at random.

Thanks again for all your help, let me know if there is any other things I can do.

 

[58sniper]

Well, you could put a GPO through that empties the DELETED ITEMS when they close Outlook.

Yes - do an offline defrag once you move things over.

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP
Want to know how email works? Read for yourself -

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt

 

[fuego007]

There is only one reason to perform an offline defrag, and that is to free up space on the hard drive. What would you need more free space on your HD for? Are you planning to use the drive your Exchange DBs are on for file storage? Offline defrags are a hold-over from the days of Exchange 5.0, which had no online defrag process. The online defrag process frees up unused space in the database for use by new messages, etc. The database WILL NOT consume any more HD space until all the empty space in the DB is consumed. An offline defrag gets you nothing but free disc space that your DB is going to start consuming again as soon as you start the Exchange services.

Zelandakh: Archiving will free up space within the DB, which means he won't need more HD space for a while.


When all else fails, READ THE DAMN BOOK!

 

[jdannan]

Today has been a nightmare, the store keeps going down. And I've got not HD space left, and every time I clear some space, the DB takes it and shuts down the store again.

I cannot do an offline defrag until tonight, which I hope will free some space in the DB. But one question, if the DB keeps taking all the space in the HD, does that mean an offline defrag wont clear space from the DB?

Please advise, things are starting to get messy.

Thanks.

 

[hunterdw]

jdannan--

I'm not trying to be a neophite here, but I don't see where you've responded to the replies suggesting a backup with flushing the transaction logs.

Have you done this recently?

drive:\path\to\exchange\mdbdata\

what's the oldest date of a ".log" file?

--all this assumes your logs are in the default location of course.

If, as you suggest, it's the DATABASE that's taking the harddrive space, then no, an offline defrag won't help. If your database is "full" and taking up more storage to hold items, then a defrag will move things around, but don't compress the message store's whitepsace, because there's nothing to compress.

One thing you'll learn about tek-tips.com, if you haven't already, everyone here is busy. We want to help, but when we ask questions we do so for a reason. Chances are we've "been there before" and the questions help us understand your environment as quickly as possible.

And, if we help, a "star" is appreciated. That's why we're a community helping each other, ya know? I don't care if I get a star, but when a thread gets stars, chances are the answers are there and it will help someone in the future.

--DW

 

[jdannan]

I'm sorry, I didn't respond to that.

The logs have been flushed. There are 5 .log files in MDBDATA. E00.log, E00tmp.log, E0002909.log, res1.log and res2.log. That's all the logs file in there.

Does this answer your question. Thanks

 

[hunterdw]

that's a great start.

Can you describe what drives you have in that particular server?

You say your C: is getting full... and it looks like 32+ gig of that is Exchange...

What else is on C:?

Do you have any other drives in the server that have 40+ gigs of EMPTY drive space?

Do you have external storage - preferably something SCSI... but I've done USB2.0 in a pinch, and only for a SHORT time (hours or a day while rebuilding).