I have recently installed a Server running Windows Server 2003 R2 x64 SP2 for a customer of mine. The customer has roughly 40 Mailboxes which in total have about 30 - 35GB of mail between them. I installed this server about 1 month ago and all was fine fora week or 2 but then, all of a sudden, the exchange database (mailbox database.edb) grew to be about 227GB in size. I suspect the only reason it stoped growing was because it ran out of disk space on that partition. The database has now dismounted itself and stoped growing for the time being. I have managed to clear about 60GB of data off the partition but I am hesitant to re-mount the database as I dont want itto start growing againand use up the remaining disk space I have just freed. I have tried backing up the Information Store using NTBackup, but this did not help reduce the size of the database. I have tried defragmenting the database without any luck either. Can someone please tell me? Why my databaseis so big? How can I reduce the size of it? And how can I stop it from happening again? Thanks

Are you sure it was the actual database that grew in size, or were you looking at the size of many transaction logs? It could have been a looping message, or other process, which generated lots of transactionlogs. Also, what do the individual mailbox sizes look like?

Yes it is the actual database file which has grown in size, the "mailbox database.edb" file. I have enabled circular logging on the transaction logs there is about 20 log files present at the moment but that vaires at times. There can be as many as 100 or as little as 5 depending on the load. The individual mailboxes range in size there are about 40 mailboxes in total. The largest is 6GB but the average size is about 400 - 500 MB. Alll the mailboxes together are about 30 - 35GB.

Circular logging isn't a good idea, as that restricts your ability to recover to the point of failure. I'd disable it and see how the log file generation goes. Also, check event 1221 from your application event log - how much free space is there in this database?

Im having the same issue with a client of mine .. ... anyone have any suggestions ... B

Are you guys running e2k7 sp1? Are there any other Exchange servers on the network? Run the BPA? I am doing a new deployment for a client as well- that will fit this bill and I will let you know if I experience the same issues. sorry to not provide much value right now.

Hi; i once had the same problem andthe reason was the deleted item retention and the option of not deleting the items past retention time unless the database is backed up and during that time no backup was happening for the database so it kept on growing but when i unchecked this option it was fine,please check and let me know thanks

We are having the same issue. We've tried everything mentioned here and Clean-MailboxDatabase command. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thank you.

I managed to sort ours out. I was having the issue with public folders so I am not sure this applies for regular mailbox's, but I imagine it does. The issue is with the alerts on mailbox size limits. I have alot of mail-enabled public folders of which one is an archive/journal folder, when it reached the size limit set on the public folders the system started sending out alerts. The problem was the alerts were not arriving in the public folder as you would expect. They were getting tied up in the system somewhere and as one alert arrived, it triggered another saying it was over the limit causeing a chain reaction sending alerts... with in days it had used up gigs of space. 1 - Disable alerts on mailbox size limit (I removed all storage limits for public folders) 2 - Uncheck "Do not perminatly delete items until the database has been backed up" and "Age limit for all...... " 3 - Change the default time to keep deleted items to 1 day until issue was resolved 4 - Monitor the Application log for event 1221 which will tell you how much white space you have. Example: Event Type:InformationEvent Source:MSExchangeIS Public StoreEvent Category:General Event ID:1221Date:12/31/2007Time:4:59:59 AMUser:N/AComputer:Server1 Description:The database "Second Storage Group\Public Folder Database" has 126738 megabytes of free space after online defragmentation has terminated. For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp. BTW ... this translates to approx 125gb of free space :-( 5 - Dismount the store and run a defrag http://support.microsoft.com/kb/192185(This Doc applies to all versions of exchange) 6 - Run an isinteg -s servername -fix -test alltests 7 - Remount store .. good to go Hope this helps Blair

Thank you, Blair. Your solution worked well in our situation. Thanks again!

No Problems .. Glad I could help. Just an FYI ... I would put the keep deleted items back to 14 days once you have got your space back B