How To Shrink .STM File DB on MS Exchange Server 2003

[JamesClarkDizon]

Hi. We are using MS Exchange Server 2003 running on POP3 Clients. Our current DB size is 33GB (31GB .STM file and 2GB .EDB file).

Question: How do we reduce our database size especially the .STM file?

We did delete unnecessary emails on every users mailboxes, delete unnecessary users mailbox on the store, and do also offline defragmentation.

But after offline defragmentation, database size seems untouched and result to the same size as before.

Is there anything I missed to perform to fully reduce our exchange database size?

any help would be highly appreciated.

Many thanks,
- James

 

[nicolasvdb]

There is a default retention period of 7 days for deleted items and 14 days for deleted mailboxes.

 

[Zelandakh]

Check ESM and export the stats to excel and add them up. Total of the mailboxes = M, remember to divide by 1024 each time and convert it to GB (dividing by 1,000 ends up being miles out).

Compare that to the sum of STM and EDB in GB as reported by Explorer.

Deduct from that the 1221 event notification of white space for the private store.

Does that tally to M?

What offline defrag switches did you use and was it successful?

 

[58sniper]

I think I'll make a javascript calculator for this.....

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/

 

[xmsre]

If the POP3 clients don't retain mail on the Exchange Server, there's no point. You could lower your DIR, then consider an offline defrag possibly.

If your change delta is 4GB/day, and you retain deleted items 7 days, then the size of your DB is Change delta*8. In this case the STM is large because files predominantly come in and go out in MIME format. Only a small subset of properties are promoted to the EDB.

 

[Zelandakh]

POP clients minimise Exchange size, maximise storage across the enterprise (i.e. on clients), increase overheads and headaches and should be kept as toys for home use.

Just my twopenneth.

 

[JamesClarkDizon]

Hi. I did run offline defragmentation by running eseutil /d [db].

Total Mailbox size via System Manager is 15.8GB
Total Mailbox size via Windows Explorer (Exchange DB) is 33GB
White Space notification from Event ID 1221 is 84MB.

After running eseutil /d on our exchange db, nothing's change on the size of our .stm file.

.edb reduced size by only 84MB which is expected from Event ID.

what else do i missed? is this case really a microsoft problem and no solution at all? just asking..

Thanks
- james

 

[Zelandakh]

What is your deleted item retention time? Is this standard or enterprise?

 

[xmsre]

deleted items

 

[Zelandakh]

Yup - my take too. Hence asking about Std or Ent - could move to a new store in case it is a corruption which I've seen once before that was the start of a 7013.

 

[JamesClarkDizon]

Deleted Item Retention was set to 30 days on Deleted Items and 30 days also for Deleted Mailboxes.

We are using Standard Edition with Service Pack 2.

We cannot add more stores since Std Edtn cannot accomodate more than one mailbox store.

Btw, I just set yesterday our Deteled Item Retention to 7days for Deleted Items and 14days for Deleted Mailbox.

When do I see the results of this changes on our database?

Is there any other way to solve this issue?

Thanks for the help,
- james

 

[58sniper]

The first successful Exchange backup after the first maintenance cycle after the change was made. I hope that makes sense.

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/

 

[Zelandakh]

You could set DIRT to 0, wait for the maintenance cycle then take a backup, confirm you get 1221 changes then set DIRT back to 14 days.