I'm using MS SBS 2003 Standard Server, I found the stm file size is growing more fast, so how can I compact it? I'm worry it willgrow to16GB limit storage of exchange server.Thanks for help.

Hello there,Growth of STM file is subject to usage of mailboxes using any non mapi clients. If you have multiple users who use OWA or any other non mapi client to download their mails STM size will continue growing. Here are your few options:You can increase the soft limit on databases up to 75GB - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/912375Plan a downtime and defrag the databases. There is no way you can defrag only single file though. - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa997972.aspxThis will need 100% free space of the actual database size on the drive your runing the defrag from.MMilind Naphade | MCTS:M | http://www.msexchangegeek.com

Yep, we suggest you increase the limitation according to KB912375.As supplement, some articles for your reference:Understanding Exchange Databases Disk Consumptionhttp://www.msexchange.org/articles/Exchange-Databases-Disk-Consumption.htmlHow to resolve unexpected growth of EDB or/and STM Fileshttp://support.microsoft.com/kb/555360thanks,Elvis

The message submitted to the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service via a non-mapi method, the contents of that message are stored in the .stm file. So almost all mails coming from Internet will be stored in .stm file. One exception is the remote side submit the mail via Outlook/Exchange to your server. To Milind, Growth of STM file is subject to usage of mailboxes using any non mapi clients. If you have multiple users who use OWA or any other non mapi client to download their mails STM size will continue growing. Here are your few options: The sentence in bold is inaccurate. The stm file size will not growing if you read a mail in edb file. Exchange Storage Architecture http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124808(EXCHG.65).aspx When a MAPI client, such as Microsoft Outlook, submits a message to the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service, the contents of that message are stored in the .edb file. If a non-MAPI client opens the message, the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service does an immediate conversion of the MAPI content to Internet format by performing some of the conversion and calling IMAIL, which in turn calls RTFHTML, to complete the conversion. None of this conversion is persistent, meaning that data is not moved out of the .edb file and written to the .stm file. Hope this helps. Thanks, Elvis