Dear all I have a Ex03 std sp2 server which is no longer used, all the user mailboxes have been deleted, from my understanding the mailboxes will remain in retention for 30 days (also known as tombstone) The on-defrag will check any deleted mailboxes and check against the policy before completely wiping the mailbox? The server is setup with circular logging however when I check the edb periodically it seems to have grown, can anyone please help / advise what is happening to the ex03 server, the server is still writing e00.log files?

The physical size of the mailbox database will not decrease unless you run offline defragmentation after moving/deleting mailboxes online maintainence will perform the tasks below http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jeremyk/archive/2004/06/12/154283.aspx Thank youDhruv

1. Your understanding is quite right, 2. The EDB file will not shring, after the mailboxes have been deleted and online maintainence has run, exch will use free white space before the ebd will grow again. 3. To reduce the edb, I would either perform an offline defrag which can sometimes fail and will require downtime of that database or 4. I would create another database and move your mailboxes from old DB to new DB and then delete the old DB edb file. 5. Not sure why you have circular logging enabled but if you have a valid reason then if fines but I'd make sure you understand what it's used for and this wont help reduce the edb.Sukh

is it possible to create another db in ex03 std sp2? If so any documentation available on this?

1. STD has limitations, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822440 2. I'd recommned that you start thinking about migrating to another version of exch or perform a offline defrag if downtime is acceptable and you have the storage.Sukh

Exchange 2003 Standard Edition is limited to one mailbox and one public store. When you want to decrease the physical size of mailbox database, you can run offline defragmentation: Some related documents for you: How to defragment Exchange databases http://support.microsoft.com/kb/328804 Determining the True Amount of Space in an Exchange Database http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996139(EXCHG.65).aspx How to defragment with the Eseutil utility (Eseutil.exe) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/192185/ Thanks, Evan Liu TechNet Subscriber Support in forum If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.