Hi,We have an Exchange 2003 SP2 mail server. Three weeks ago the database exceeded the 50GB limit, but the eseutil couldnt compact it. Thenfinaly we started a new database, butit has the same problemalso. the online defrag seems OK, It reports that the edb has only 2MB free space whithin. But the database grows approx. 1GBevery workday. I ran the isinteg on the old database already withoutany error message.The mail server works fine for four years till now. After the first database error we changed the RAID card and the hard drives too. The only thing which is changed before the first recognized error that is the mailarchiver software. We have GFI MA, and then we upgraded it to version 6.Thanx for every ideas,Braun SandorBudapest/HU

Hi,If free/white space shows 2MB in event log 1221 then offline defrag can recover only 2MB of space only because it just remove the white space logged into event 1221.You need to find out what is causing database growth, go for step by step approach....~ Disable third-party software like GFI & any antivirus or backup software you have and check the issue...~ Check and make sure that online maintenance runs every night at scheduled time on all databases and completes sucessfully, you may increase schedule window in case is doesn't finish in defined...~ Check bunch of resources to troubleshoot further...http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555360http://mostlyexchange.blogspot.com/search?q=EDB+and+STM+files+grow+continuallyhttp://exchangeserverinfo.com/2007/05/25/how-to-troubleshoot-log-or-database-files-growing-rapidly-issue-on-exchange-servers.aspxAmit Tank | MVP - Exchange | MCITP:EMA MCSA:M | http://ExchangeShare.WordPress.com

Hi Amit,I now that thing with white space. The size of this is weird for me. As You wrote, I will try to disable GFI. I've already removed the AV at the first database error.The online ESE runs whitout error messages. I will check the links.... and reflect if I find sthing. THX alot

I did a calculate on the mailboxes sizes. The sum of the whole boxes are about 2GB. The database size now is 10,5GB. As I see something doesnt let to delete the expired items from the database (like deleted mails and mailboxes). Which setting or program can do this...?

Hi,Actually database size = size of all mailboxes + retention items and disconnected mailboxes + white space. Check out below article for further understanding...Understanding Exchange Databases Disk Consumptionhttp://www.msexchange.org/articles/Exchange-Databases-Disk-Consumption.htmlYou need to find out the size of retention items and disconnected mailboxes, if those are really high then you can reduce the keep deleted item and mailbox time setting on Exchange server, wait for online maintenance to run and after completion of it, find white space in 1221 event and if it very high then you can defrag the database to reduce the size of DB.Amit Tank | MVP - Exchange | MCITP:EMA MCSA:M | http://ExchangeShare.WordPress.com

Today morning I reduced the time setting to one day and unchecked the wait for online maintenance. I'm curiously waiting for the results...Thanks for Your advices. Tomorrow I will write about the changes.

Now the online defrag found 881MB white space in the database. Sadly its not enough knowing that the maildata growthwas 3GB at the past 5 days. Today I redirected the archived mails to a new mailbox to check the real traffic.

As I see after one hour mail traffic monitoring the ~1GB data/day movement is a real data. (We are a media company... hmmm. Maybe I should have to make some restriction and policy on mail usage. - (I'm here till january.)) So the only question still how can I reduce the storage size?

Oh, don't you have any message size limit set at organization levle and Mailbox quota/limit set on database level?How to set size limits for messages in Exchange Serverhttp://support.microsoft.com/kb/322679http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Set-Size-Limits-Messages.htmlSetting Mailbox Limitshttp://www.petri.co.il/setting_mailbox_limits.htmAmit Tank | MVP - Exchange | MCITP:EMA MCSA:M | http://ExchangeShare.WordPress.com

No. We have 15MB size limit on mails and 200MB limit on boxes, but there isa heavy mail traffic under this limitation.Last week I changed the incoming mail size limit to 8MB, but thiswas not accepted and prefered by the management.The weakest point in a system is the user (including myself)... :-P

You should now about it, that most of the users are downloading the mails onto their desktop computers. This is the case of the ~2GB sum. mailbox size on the server.

~ In that case did you check the size of recoverable items?To measure the size of the recoverable items you can use Performance Monitor. The specific counter you use is called: Total Size of Recoverable Items.http://www.msexchange.org/articles/Exchange-Databases-Disk-Consumption.html~ Is database being flooded by all user or some user? You can move the mailboxes to another database (if you have Exchange 2003 Enterprise edition) one by one and check which one is sending/receiving more emails with size...~ Did you get time to check links which I gave in first post and followed those? Like disable third-party software and antivirus, disable unwanted relay operation etc...~ You can use some third party utility to scan your message tracking logs and find the amount of send/receive data of individual users for defined period of time. You may ask suspected users to give business justification for sending/receiving this much amount of data outside of your org specially through email system because email system is not really built for data sharing, FTP or some other data sharing sites can be used for this purpose.http://www.quest.com/messagestats/Amit Tank | MVP - Exchange | MCITP:EMA MCSA:M | http://ExchangeShare.WordPress.com

1. Yes I did, but before unchecked the Do not permanently delete... function.2. I read about it, but as users commented, this could make unwanted database size growth. So I didnt try it.3. I'd already uninstalled all third party softwares when the first crash happened. The only third party software a retrospect clien on the server.Now I'm not sure in it, but maybe I caused this thing, when I changed the RAID card and HDDs after the first crash, and I didnt reconfigured the backup after these...?I will make an offline defrag with the setting above in the 1. point, and maybe it would work. In this case I will reconfigure the backup and test it for a long period.

It seems thatI found the reason of the unsuccesfull defrag. (I cant understand, how can I be such unattendent...)In the Mailbox Store dialog box the last succesfull backup date note is 2/19/2009.On the other handthe last backup file modification date is 3/3/2009.So there is a conflict...

Victory. The offline defrag compressed the database back to 2GB.Thanks a lot for Your advices Amit!