I'm in sort of a bind. I have an Exchange 2003 EE server that is running extremely low on disk space. The server bays are fully populated with drives. I ran the Tree Free size utility and it appears the journaling store is consuming quite a bit of space. We are using the ArcMail Defender appliance for archiving which utilizes journaling. Can I move my information stores/databases to another drive (i.e. USB external drive) by following the steps outlined in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/821915 with some level of success? Server will be upgraded in about 4 months (budget permitting) so I need a temporary solution for now. All help is appreciated.

Here is the suported storage for 2003: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/317173 If you are out of physical disk space, can you bring up another temporary server with storage and move some of the stores there?

You can't use external storage like a USB drive. Not quick enough for a start and not supported. Does this journaling product remove the content from the database? If it does, then you could have a store with lots of white space in it. Look for event ID 1221 overnight. If it does have lots of white space, then move the journal mailbox out of the store, drop the original and delete the files, create a new store and move the journal mailbox back. That would give you the space back. Simon.Simon Butler, Exchange MVP Blog | Exchange Resources

can you enable circular logging if it is not .

Moving Databse to external device (USB,External Disk) is not advised by MS. As Simon suggested, check event ID 1221 which generate right after online defrag, if you find enouigh space comsumed by white spae then work on it.Anil

You can move the databases to USB drive. But, Sembee and Anil’s right, it’s not recommended to host the database or log files on the USB drive, since comparing with the dedicated hard drive, the USB drive is not better on the performance and stable side There’re two methods that can release disk space: · Perform a full backup for databases to delete the transaction logs files that are below the log file checkpoint · Perform an offline defragmentation for databases as Sembee suggested Resources: Backing Up Exchange Server 2003 Databases How to Recover Hard Disk Space from Exchange Server Databases James Luo 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.