"Mitch" wrote:

> Hi,
> We have exchange 2003 standard.  Our database has grown to 75GB and the
> information store deactivates.  We removed mailboxes that were not in use
> which was a total of about 20GB.  It seem to resolve the problem for about a
> month and then came back saying were at 75GB again.  I don't think we used
> 20GB in a month.  When mailboxes are removed to free up space, should it
> shrink the database equally to the amount of GB removed?  Thanks.
>
> Mitch

"Dan H" wrote:

> No, it's not necessarily a 1-1 match, but if you're playing that close to the
> limits, you may really want to dig into where the space is going.
>
> Since the db uses SIS (Single Instance Storage), and the way the messages
> are stored (and sizes represented), the mailbox will probably show as
> slightly larger then the database space that will be reclaimed. 
>
> If you are going to try to free up more space, you can check and make sure
> you're cleaning up the deleted mailboxes (they don't really delete once you
> delete them, but rather just mark themselves for deletion.)  You can also
> make sure you don't have too long a period set for the dumpster (which will
> maintain deleted items.)  Of course, trying to attack the large mailboxes is
> always a good idea.  It may be as simple as reminding people to delete their
> sent items.  Enabling a retention policy (after proper approval and
> communication of course) could be a life saver if you don't already have one
> in place.  That way you can automatically delete things that are over 30 days
> old from people's deleted items folder (for example). 
>
> Of course, it's probably worth digging into your messaging
> profiles/statistics.  How many new messages are people getting a day.  What
> is the rate of increase for each mailbox every day.  Maybe there's one that
> just gets flooded with an automated message that's continually filling up. 
>
> Since you've already had to reclaim space, you know that an offline defrag
> will be needed to actually shrink the database size, but just keep that in
> mind as you make changes.  When the online maintenance runs, you'll be able
> to see how much space would be reclaimed, so even if you don't do one
> (Exchange will still just use the whitespace before allocating new disk
> space), you should have a good idea of how much room you have. 
>
> -Dan Holton
>
> "Mitch" wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> > We have exchange 2003 standard.  Our database has grown to 75GB and the
> > information store deactivates.  We removed mailboxes that were not in use
> > which was a total of about 20GB.  It seem to resolve the problem for about a
> > month and then came back saying were at 75GB again.  I don't think we used
> > 20GB in a month.  When mailboxes are removed to free up space, should it
> > shrink the database equally to the amount of GB removed?  Thanks.
> >
> > Mitch

"Mitch" <Mi***@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:3D2D277C-CD78-4893-A81D-120F8906B63E@microsoft.com...
> Hi,
> We have exchange 2003 standard.  Our database has grown to 75GB and the
> information store deactivates.  We removed mailboxes that were not in use
> which was a total of about 20GB.  It seem to resolve the problem for about
> a
> month and then came back saying were at 75GB again.  I don't think we used
> 20GB in a month.  When mailboxes are removed to free up space, should it
> shrink the database equally to the amount of GB removed?  Thanks.
>
> Mitch

"Venger" wrote:

> John Oliver, Jr. [MVP] wrote:
> > Dan makes some good points.  I would suggest running an offline defrag
> > with eseutil if you are have deleted that much data recently.  Make sure
> > you have good backup of your database file .edb and .stm before performing.
> >
> > http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Defragmenting-Exchange-Database.html
>
> Yep, and make sure you have enough free space on the drive you are doing
> the defrag on... no sense letting it run for a couple hours only to bomb
> out with no more space. There are ways to specify alternate drive
> locations for the defrag temp files at the eseutil command line...
>
> Venger
>
>