Dear All I have Exchange server 2003 and outlook 2003, My question is while archiving mails in outlook by creating PST file, will move the mail from exchange server or it just creating replica leaving copy of mail at server? asserver is facing storage problem as HDD is about to full.

Archiving to Outlook willmove mail from the mailbox in Exchange to a Personal Folder (PST file) on the client. However: This will not result in less storage space consumed on the Exchange Server by default: Microsoft Exchange by default keeps deleted items in the database for 30 days; Microsoft Exchange will free up space after 30 days in the database, resulting in white space in the database; You will need to offline defrag your Exchange database to reclaim white space within databases.

Hi Sander Thanks for the help, now the mainconcern here is, for offline defreg, HDD capacity is not sufficient, as database filehas grown and occupied more than 75% of the HDD capacity, is there any other solution to defrag and reclaim space? regards Saifee

Hi Saifee, You can use /t switch to set the path of defragmented database to remote server/share. eseutil /d <database_path_and_file_name> /t <temp_database_path_and_file_name> How to Run Eseutil /D (Defragmentation) You can search for 1221 event id in Application event log before doing it, which gives you the amount of white space in your database and that you can claim in defragmentation. Make sure that you have good backup & database is in clean shutdown state (you can check this with eseutil /mh)

Hi Amit Thanks for your valuable reply, is there any way to flush mailbox from exchange manager directly as it used to be in exchange earlier versions?

Yes Saifee, You can right click on disconnected mailboxes (marked with Red Cross) in Exchange System Manager and purge it (which deletes the mailbox from database then if you want to recover then you need to restore it from backup) but it doesnt decrease the size of database (only offline defragmentation can decrease the size of database). Now, when online maintenance runs on database during midnight 1am-5am then it marks this deleted space as a white space then you can verify the event 1221 in log and go ahead for offline defragmentation.

Hi, You can use the following commands to check the stores' status: 1. Run eseutil /g on the database to check whether it includes unhealthy records. 2. Run "eseutil /ms" to check the free space on the store. 3. Run "isinteg -dump" to dump the Index Age and Folder tables. In addition, check whether the online maintenance for this database successfully finishes(i.e. releases normal free space) every night. If all the mailbox stores grow simultaneously, check the overall message volume by using the Performance Monitor. To do this, follow these steps: 1. Open the Performance Monitor on the Exchange server. 2. Select SMTP Server object in the "Performance object" list. 3. Select the corresponding instance such as SMTP 1. 4.In the counters list, select the following counters to monitor: Messages Received Total, Messages Receiver/sec, Messages Sent Total, Messages Sent/sec, Messages Bytes Total, Messages Bytes Total/sec , and anything else you think necessary. We can compare these captured counters' values with the values under the normal conditions. Moreover, a high value also indicates an undesirable situation, such as the counter Messages Receiver/sec is near 10. (It depends on the exact environment.) Hope it helps. Xiu

Hi Amityeah that's ture that it does online maintenance during midnight, but my question was to perform flushing on user's mailbox, like exchange 5.5, one can simple choose the mail box - righ click and select flush mailbox, provide the date range and that's it.. all mails upto that range will be deleted.

No Saifee, it is not possible from Exchange System Manager in Exchange 2003 to delete certain mails within date range. You may need to use ExMerge to archive that task but again those mails will go in retention period for 7 days (which is by default settings on mailbox but you can modify it on individual mailbox) ExMerge Example: XADM: How to Remove a Message from Exchange by Using the ExMerge Utility ExMerge FAQs: XADM: Some Questions and Answers About the Exmerge Utility

Hi Amit Thanks for the reply.. i am looking at the possiblity to move exchange database to different location, which has larger space. could you be kind to give me information how to move database from current location to different location? is there any documentation available to refer it from?

Hello Saifee, I assume you are moving database on the same server but to different drive/location. It requires database to be dismounted and changing path in ESM takes care of movement. Right click on the Mailbox Store -> Properties -> Database Tab -> Change the path of "Exchange Database" & "Exchange Streaming Database" and when you hit Apply it warns you that this will dismount the database and move the database. Once you click Yes/Ok then it dismount DB and move the edb & stm database files itself and mount the database again. Take backup before movement because while movement Exchange remove the committed transaction logs. Reference: How to move Exchange databases and logs in Exchange Server 2003

Hi Amit well sorry for troubling u again.. let me clear one more thing... exchange is in cluster environment, and there is a full text index enabled on the server. which generates log file of 5 MB every 5 min. now i want to delete this full text index, i have gone through the procedure to complete that task and things needs to care about. my question, is there any other procedure for cluster environment or its a same?, as i am not able to locate such information, will it leaves any impact oncluster as such?

I am unable to find the database movement procedure for Exchange cluster server but I feel that it shouldnt affect on cluster since it dismount the store (and not stopping any services). To be safer side you can stop the cluster admin service on passive node so active doesnt failover to it while movement.