Exchange store limit question

I implemented Exchange storage limits two weeks ago on my Exchange 2003 server. All users either deleted their excess mail or transfered it to PSTs, there is around 390 users. The deletion settings on each storage group is set to keep deleted items 7 days and keep deleted mailboxes 30 days. the problem is that it has been two weeks and the size of my Exchange store should have shrank but is has not? it was 101 gigs before the store limits and now it still reads 101 gigs. What am I missing here?

Thanks.

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ajs1976

The information store will not shrink unless you run an offline defrag. Look for information on eseutil.

garv221

ajs1976 wrote:

The information store will not shrink unless you run an offline defrag. Look for information on eseutil.

exactly. The only way to shrink a store is to defrag it

sprkymrk

Gotta agree with everyone else - eseutil.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb123761.aspx

coax31

Thanks guys, I was hired as a junior admin about 8 months ago and I am the sole person responsible for the Exchange server at a company of about 390 people. We have are Exchange stores on a Lefthand iSCI SAN and I just rebuilt the Exchange server on a brand new PowerEdge 2950. I will probably take this test after I finish 70-290 and 70-291. I have learned a lot about Exchange with hands on experience, when I first started here in March we had a corrupt Exchange store with no reliable backup and I had to call Micro$oft and they walked me through a hard repair of the database, let me tell you the Exchange stores totaled to about 98 Gigs and it took me 2.5 days including nights to complete the hard repair process, so I have used the eseutil command before but I just thought it was used for a hard repair only.

CoryS

I think the process we are looking to go through here is called reclaiming your "white space", from what I understand, if you are running Enterprise version of Exchange it may be a good idea to avoid running an offline defrag unless you are completely comfortable restoring the a previous backup. I understand that db corruption in any Exchange version post 5.5 has gotten alot less frequent but it is still a problem that CAN plague a defrag. If you are running short on space, or are using Standard then this still may be necessary but if not and you are not 100% confident on db recovery you may want to put some more thought into it. In either case good luck!

coax31

Well I ran the defrag and everything went well, my Exchange stores went from a total size 0f 98 gigs down to 24 gigs. Thanks for all of your help!

E:\Program Files\Exchsrvr>cd bin

E:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\bin>Eseutil /d M:\SG1\MBX-2\mail02-sg1-mbx2.edb

Microsoft(R) Exchange Server Database Utilities
Version 6.5
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Initiating DEFRAGMENTATION mode...
Database: M:\SG1\MBX-2\mail02-sg1-mbx2.edb
Streaming File: M:\SG1\MBX-2\mail02-sg1-mbx2.STM
Temp. Database: TEMPDFRG5960.EDB
Temp. Streaming File: TEMPDFRG5960.STM

Defragmentation Status (% complete)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|
...................................................

Moving 'TEMPDFRG5960.EDB' to 'M:\SG1\MBX-2\mail02-sg1-mbx2.edb'...
File Copy Status (% complete)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|
...................................................

Moving 'TEMPDFRG5960.STM' to 'M:\SG1\MBX-2\mail02-sg1-mbx2.stm'...
File Copy Status (% complete)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|
...................................................

Note:
It is recommended that you immediately perform a full backup
of this database. If you restore a backup made before the
defragmentation, the database will be rolled back to the state
it was in at the time of that backup.

Operation completed successfully in 7002.875 seconds.

E:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\bin>Eseutil /d M:\SG1\MBX-3\mail02-sg1-mbx3.edb

Microsoft(R) Exchange Server Database Utilities
Version 6.5
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Initiating DEFRAGMENTATION mode...
Database: M:\SG1\MBX-3\mail02-sg1-mbx3.edb
Streaming File: M:\SG1\MBX-3\mail02-sg1-mbx3.STM
Temp. Database: TEMPDFRG1984.EDB
Temp. Streaming File: TEMPDFRG1984.STM

Defragmentation Status (% complete)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|
...................................................

Moving 'TEMPDFRG1984.EDB' to 'M:\SG1\MBX-3\mail02-sg1-mbx3.edb'...
File Copy Status (% complete)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|
...................................................

Moving 'TEMPDFRG1984.STM' to 'M:\SG1\MBX-3\mail02-sg1-mbx3.stm'...
File Copy Status (% complete)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|
...................................................

Note:
It is recommended that you immediately perform a full backup
of this database. If you restore a backup made before the
defragmentation, the database will be rolled back to the state
it was in at the time of that backup.

Operation completed successfully in 2407.187 seconds.

E:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\bin>Eseutil /d M:\SG1\MBX-1\mail02-sg1-mbx1.edb

Microsoft(R) Exchange Server Database Utilities
Version 6.5
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Initiating DEFRAGMENTATION mode...
Database: M:\SG1\MBX-1\mail02-sg1-mbx1.edb
Streaming File: M:\SG1\MBX-1\mail02-sg1-mbx1.STM
Temp. Database: TEMPDFRG728.EDB
Temp. Streaming File: TEMPDFRG728.STM

Defragmentation Status (% complete)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|
...................................................

Moving 'TEMPDFRG728.EDB' to 'M:\SG1\MBX-1\mail02-sg1-mbx1.edb'...
File Copy Status (% complete)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|
...................................................

Moving 'TEMPDFRG728.STM' to 'M:\SG1\MBX-1\mail02-sg1-mbx1.stm'...
File Copy Status (% complete)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|
...................................................

Note:
It is recommended that you immediately perform a full backup
of this database. If you restore a backup made before the
defragmentation, the database will be rolled back to the state
it was in at the time of that backup.

Operation completed successfully in 1376.782 seconds.