too many transaction logs

[blackrabbit]

We are using Backup exec 9.0 and do a full backup of our info store and individual mailboxes everynight but the transaction logs in exchange are not getting flushed and haven't been for months and now we are almost out of space. If i am doing a full backup of the info store and individual mailboxes can i just manually delete log files say over 30 days old?

 

[ShackDaddy]

Don't delete any transaction logs.

Have you tried doing a Transaction Log Backup with the truncate option on? I'd be curious to know whether that forces truncation/committment.

Also, you should know that if you don't backup every database in your storage group, like you leave out the public folders or something, your backup will not properly truncate.

ShackDaddy

 

[blackrabbit]

we were only doing full backups on mondays, differentials during the week and a copy on friday. i changed the differentials last night to do a full backup of exchange and when it finished today it had flushed some of the logs from february. i'm wondering if it just needs to play catch up with the other logs. i just started doing the daily full of exchange so maybe its just way behind on the flushing. it deleted 7 gig of them today after the full backup. i'm going to see how it does over the next few days. i bet once it catches up they will be gone.

 

[WhoKilledKenny]

You should be able to delete most of your log files as they have already been commited to the database. The files are only present on the drive should you have to play them back for recovery (This is why Microsoft recommends having the log files on seperate drives from the databases). Under normal circumstances the logs are purged from the drive after the backup archive bit is reset, so I am suspect to your backup software being the issue. It may be possible that the logs are not being deleted until a full backup is done, because you are running differential backups. If you need to clear your log files, in an emergency - so that your store doesn't go offline, delete any of the 5MB log files (choose the older one first). DO NOT DELETE - res1.log, res2.log, E00tmp.log, and/or E00.log. This will cause your store to go off-line and you will not be able to start your services without those files.

 

[WhoKilledKenny]

Here is some more information from Microsoft.
Backup Strategy for Exchange:
Full backups - Deletes committed transaction logs
Full + Incrementals - Deletes committed transaction logs
Full + Differential - Does not delete committed trans logs
Copy - Does not delete committed trans logs

Hope this helps...

 

[petroffp]

Jumping in here w/a similar problem.
We upgraded SBS2003 to Service Pack 1 on Tuesday 8/2.
We do a full SBS backup (using NTBackup) every night, however the log files are accumulating and not being deleted. I've been trying to find a resource to diagnose the problem. At this rate we will be out of disk space in about 10 days.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[WhoKilledKenny]

Petroffp...
By Chance do you have any Mac OSX clients running Entourage? (I think that's how you spell it?

 

[petroffp]

Nope,
I think this is a story of doing too many things at once.
We upgraded to SP1 and at the same time tripled our CALs and user count from 15 user to 45 user. (We added a new company with 30 OWA users). I keep reading here that a complete backup should clear the logs so I am just running backup over and over.
I just ran a 3rd complete backup after checking "Enable Circular Logging" and the .log files have now been deleted. The most recent backup file size however doubled in size though and the "Enable Circular Logging" checkbox has been cleared.
Right now I am running NTBackup again to see if the backup compresses a bit and we get back to a manageable storage growth.

Thanks for thinking about my problem, it appears to be solved.

 

[markdmac]

Take a look at my FAQ here: faq955-5581

You will find steps in there on how to verify if the log files can be safley deleted or not.

Basically all you need to do is dismount both the public and private information stores. Then run ESEUTIL /MH PRIV1.EDB and ESEUTIL /MH /PUB1.EDB.

Check the results of each and verify that it says Clean Shutdown and Logs Required should be 0/0. If that is the case you can safely delete *.log.



I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark