Exchange 2010 DAG, SP1 MR3 - Last week I implemented retention policies to purge mail beyond 18 months in 4 seperate databases. I dont seem to have recovered any space after this ran. I read that the normal maintenance should recover the white space but again, im not seeing it after a week. I also read that I should dismount the DB's and run an offline defrag to recover the space. Im not sure which solution is accurate? If I can do it by an offline defrag, is this possible on the passive DAG node or does it have to be on the active databases? Suggestions anyone? Please.

Although you have freed up space and you won't see if on the disk, the current white space is being used by the storage engine. So the db shouldn't grow in size until the white space has been filled. If you want to claim free space on the disk, you should dismount the db and run the defragmantation. You cannot do that on the copy, because there you miss base log file used by eseutil. There would be a workaround for that by renaming the most recent log file but I wouldn't suggest it. You can refer to the following link for further detail on eseutil: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998249(EXCHG.80).aspxVincenzo MCTS, MCTIP Server 2008 | MCTS Exchange 2010 | WatchGuard Firewall Security Professional