Hi everyone,

I use Windows Server Backup of Windows Server 2012 to backup my entire virtual Exchange Server 2013 server. This server is a member of a DAG. This server also hosts CAS role.

The problem is hard disk size grows about 4 GB every night, and so does our backup size. I've checked and confirm the it's not because of the Logging folder (Exchange Server\V15\Logging), or mailbox databases growth. The daily mail traffic is not high.

I use VSS Full Backup daily on a SAN LUN. Does anyone have any suggestion? Is it because of the backup job? If I cannot figure out the root cause, I may end up fullfil my storage very soon.

Thank you in advanced!

Can you show a list of the backed up files?

Thank you!

Hugh

The problem is hard disk size grows about 4 GB every night, and so does our backup size. I've checked and confirm the it's not because of the Logging folder (Exchange Server\V15\Logging), or mailbox databases growth.

Hi, Tu Nguyen Anh.

Have you also checked inetpub folder? If you havent, kindly check it, as well.

Even though we backed our virtual Exchange up with Veeam, some time ago we did face the same issue regarding increased read/transferred rates.

There was quite a similar deployment with Exchange server hosting CAS role and in our particular case problem itself was caused by extensively growing inetpub folder that is supposed to record all IIS activity to the CAS.

Kind regards, Leonardo.

Hi Hugh,

There's nothing much in that list. There are only 2 lines indicate that the volume has successfully backed up. That's all.

Regards,

Tu9a2

Hi Leonardo,

I actually did check. The W3SVC files growth is just around 100 MB a day. It could not be the main cause. I already seperate the page file to a dedicated partition, which is not included in the backup.

Another strange thing is the way Windows Server stores the backups. As you already know, I use VSS Full Backup every day, which means it would take about 200+ GB a day to store the backup files. But take a look at this:

I have 18 copies but used only 458 GB. Here's the details:

I'm thinking about a tool which can help me monitoring which folders are growing too quickly. Last night it took me only 1 GB more.

Regards,

Tu9a2

Hi,

Is there any update on the issue? Have you found which folders cause the issue?

You can try to use DPM to see if the backup file grows quickly.

If I remember correctly, there was some VSS problems with Exchange 2013 RTM that was fixes in CU1.
Have you installed that Cumulative Update?
If not, I would highly recommend it."

good luck

Hi all,

I was so busy with other project, so that I forgot about this issue.

All of our 2 Exchange Server are running CU1.

At the moment I'm typing this post, the partition is only 3 GB free. I think it's because of the transaction logs, and more space would be freed up after the Full backup tonight. Last night it took me 220 GB for the backup.

The good news is I still have more space to extend the virtual hard drive for this server (about 500 GB more). But the really bad thing is I haven't figured out the root cause yet.

Regards,

Tu9a2

hi...
i think due to one of subscriptions is broken and as long as the transactions are not completely distributed to all subscribers, database Server will hold the transactions in the log. Check all replication subscriptions.

i would prefer to reconfigure .... and place a proper alert .. follow this post for reconfiguration..

http://exchangeserverpro.com/set-automated-exchange-2010-database-backup-alert-email/

and theory for above link is

http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2011/11/09/capacity-planning-yes-transaction-log-space-is-critical-to-keeping-your-databases-healthy-and-mounted.aspx

Hi Shah,

Your info is very interesting. Actually I did check the backup job everyday, and it really did their job: all the transaction logs have been wiped off.

So far I realized that my issue is related to Exchange folders only. The problem that eat up all of my storage last week was because of another admin migrated a whole database to another one on the same server. I've stopped all the abnormal administration, just let the system run as it should be, and monitor the folder growth for maybe a week.

I'll get you all informed when I find something new.

Regards,

Tu9a2

Hi all,

After one week gathering information, I've found out that the mailbox database folder is the most growing one. The size of the database is unbelievable!

We have 3 DB, for mailbox quotas management: 1GB, 2GB and 3GB.

On DB 1GB, we have 1193 mailboxes, DB size is 86.3 GB.

On DB 2GB, we have 77 mailboxes, DB size is 60.7 GB.

On DB 3GB, we have 18 mailboxes, DB size is 133 GB.

The 3GB DB is the default DB. From the begining, all mailboxes was created here. Then, they were migrated to other DBs. But the source DB size still the same. Let say, in case all of the mailboxes in DB 3GB are full, the DB size shoule be 3 * 18 = 54 GB. How could it be 133 GB like this?

What should I do to reclaim the space? The only way I'm trying is create another DB and then migrate the 3GB mailboxes to the new DB. After the migration, I will delete the source DB.

Regards,

Tu9a2