My Exchange 2007 database keeps growing slowly. I migrated 95% of mailboxes for 2003 to 2007. DB size was 13 GB in 2003. In 2007 it reached 17 GB and it keeps growing by around 1 GB a day. Email load is the same and all users has quota set in their mailboxes.

Hello Alhamad, How many days were over after migration? One thing I suspect that deleted item retention is 14 days by default which was 7 days in Exchange 2003 and that might be causing the database growth bit high. Reference: Configuring Deleted Mailbox and Deleted Item Retention http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb125266(EXCHG.80).aspx However 17GB is the small amount of DB for Exchange 2007 and it can be easily handled by it until you have enough space on the drive.

Hi Amit, I agree the DB size is not substantioal, however, it grown 4 GB since the migration and there are still mailboxes to be moved. If I calculate the total mailbox size quota allocated to users it is almost 13 GB. Shall I change the default retension back to 7 days. Also, Maintainance schedule is running everyday and event 1221 is logged and around 300 MB is free. However, event id 9871 and 704 are also logged: Source: ESE, Date:29/10/2008 7:59:59 AM, Event ID:704 Task Category: Online Defragmentation Description: MSExchangeIS (2452) First Storage Group: Online defragmentation of database 'E:\Exchange Database\Mailbox\Mailbox Database.edb' was interrupted and terminated. The next time online defragmentation is started on this database, it will resume from the point of interruption. Source:MSExchangeIS Mailbox Store, Date:29/10/2008 7:59:59 AM, Event ID: 9871 Task Category: Background Cleanup Description: There is an online maintenance overlap for database "First Storage Group\Mailbox Database". Please revise the online maintenance schedule. I have increased the schedule twice but I get the same results. At this time no other task is being run such as backup.

Hi Alhamad, Well, let me just explain about the Exchange database consumption in EDB. EDB file = Users actual data + Deleted mails/mailboxes + Recyclable space (can see in event id 1221) You can refer below article, that is for Exchange 2003 but the concept is same for Exchange 2007 too. Understanding Exchange Databases Disk Consumption http://www.msexchange.org/articles/Exchange-Databases-Disk-Consumption.html So even though you set quota and limit the mailboxes it doesnt limit the database size due to various factors like above and depends on the mailflow coming in/out inside mailbox daily hence dont worry about the size of Exchange database. You can set the deleted item retention period to 7 days but users will be able to retrieve emails for 7 days only.

Hi Amit, Using performance monitor, I checked the value for Total Size of Recoverable Items and found it to be 15,247,609 which is almost 15 GB. Thus I believe due to warning message that the full pass is not completed, the db is growing in size. What do you think?

Yes, there could be two reasons. First I doubt that those deleted items are not crossed 14 days and Exchange couldnt delete it permanently until then. In that case, you can change the deleted items setting to 7 days, wait for the online maintenance to run and check the event 1221. Second you can increase the online maintenance or run it full days during weekends when mail transaction is less.

Hi, I do not think the Database is growing due to the Online Maintenance warning. Firstly, I would like to explain more detail regarding the event log 704 and 9871: Event 704: The event may be received if the online defrag does not have sufficient time to complete online maintenance. I suggest you increase the maintenance interval longer at weekend to check the issue again. Event 9871: The event 9871 does not have any relevance with scheduling online maintenance with other stores. The 9871 is logged when the maintenance window is complete for a database but a Task is still being processed. This Task must complete, we just wont stop it because the schedule window has ended, and that is when the 9871 is thrown. The Event has been introduced in Exchange 2007 SP1. We can extend the maintenance window to avoid the event id. Secondly, please understand that online maintenance just convert Recoverable Items space to Recyclable space for some deleted messages/mailboxes which have been deleted over 7/30 days (according to your setting). In addition, the physical space is not released after Online Maintenance. If you would like to release physical space, you need to perform Offline Defrag. In addition, it is hard to say whether it is normal the database increase 1GB per day as it is based on several factors: 1. Number of Mailboxes in the mailbox 2. Number of the messages received or sent by the users 3. The size of the messages sent and received by the users 4. Some users operations on the mailbox, for example, the user move emails into his mailbox from PST file. 5. And so on Mike

The DB size finally stopped growing on 19.1 GB after decreasing the deleted items retension to 7 days and increasing the online maintainance schedule. Thank u guys for ur support.