Exchange DB drive running out of space
Exchange 2007 SP2/ Windows 2008 server. I don't know why, but one of my database drives is running out of space very quickly! They're 300 GB LUN's, normally we only use about 200 GB, but we've gone up to 250 GB today (50 GB extra today which is a working day). Questions - 1. Any way to find out who/ what is causing this? Can't see anything in the Event Log. 2. Is there any way I can reduce the size of this DB? Is there anything within Exchange I can do?
February 5th, 2011 12:01pm

Good Place to start: http://blogs.technet.com/b/mikelag/archive/2009/07/12/troubleshooting-store-log-database-growth-issues.aspx
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February 5th, 2011 12:50pm

On Sat, 5 Feb 2011 16:54:30 +0000, Neil4933 wrote: > > >Exchange 2007 SP2/ Windows 2008 server. > >I don't know why, but one of my database drives is running out of space very quickly! They're 300 GB LUN's, normally we only use about 200 GB, but we've gone up to 250 GB today (50 GB extra today which is a working day). > >Questions - > >1. Any way to find out who/ what is causing this? Can't see anything in the Event Log. Message tracking logs. ExMon. Rapid growth can usually be attributed to either an influx of spam or a message loop. They aren't the only cause but they're pretty common. Check the amount of recoverable deleted items, too (use perfmon). >2. Is there any way I can reduce the size of this DB? The database file size isn't going to shrink unless you dismount it and run "eseutil /d" against it. You database will be offline for a pretty long time and you'll need (at most) about 250GB + 10% to compace the database -- but that will only remove free space, not messages. >Is there anything within Exchange I can do? If the growth is attributable to external activity, shut down the source. If it's an internal message loop it's harder to find. If it's an external message loop you can disable the auto-forward and auto-reply in the "Remote domains" tab of the hub transport at the organizationsl level (if the loop is caused by a RPC client -- it won't stop it if the loop is caused by POP/IMAP/SMTP clients). --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP
February 5th, 2011 12:58pm

On Sat, 5 Feb 2011 17:44:33 +0000, AndyD_ wrote: >Good Place to start: > >http://blogs.technet.com/b/mikelag/archive/2009/07/12/troubleshooting-store-log-database-growth-issues.aspx I forgot all about that one! :-( --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP
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February 5th, 2011 4:01pm

Great information as always from Andy and Rich, however, are your backups completing and truncating your logs http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd233256(EXCHG.80).aspx?Troy Werelius www.Lucid8.com
February 5th, 2011 6:39pm

On Sat, 5 Feb 2011 23:32:29 +0000, Troy Werelius wrote: >Great information as always from Andy and Rich, however, are your backups completing and truncating your logs http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd233256(EXCHG.80).aspx? Well, he said "database drives" so I don't think he's worried about the log files. At least that's my take on the problem. :-) --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP
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February 5th, 2011 10:39pm

Thank you everyone! That was a great link, Andy D. :) Just to confirm, the problem was space on the database drive, transaction logs were not affected. As regards Exmon, I always thought this was a tool useful for troubleshooting excessive transaction log generation, necessarily DB growth. If I use Exmon on the server and sort by client CPU usage, would this be a good indicator of which client was causing this issue? Anything else I can use in Exmon to track the client down? Thanks again.
February 6th, 2011 3:58pm

Yes, Exmon is a good place to start. You can sort by CPU time or Sessions etc...
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February 6th, 2011 4:52pm

On Sun, 6 Feb 2011 20:50:37 +0000, Neil4933 wrote: > > >Thank you everyone! That was a great link, Andy D. :) > >Just to confirm, the problem was space on the database drive, transaction logs were not affected. > >As regards Exmon, I always thought this was a tool useful for troubleshooting excessive transaction log generation, necessarily DB growth. If I use Exmon on the server and sort by client CPU usage, would this be a good indicator of which client was causing this issue? Anything else I can use in Exmon to track the client down? IIRC, ExMon is also part of the Performance Troubleshooter in the EMC "Toolbox". You might try running that and tell it the number or RPC opertions per second is high. That might spit something out, too. With ExMon (or PerfMon) you'd be looking for things that don't "look right". But the hard thing is that unless you know what the problem is you don't really know what to look for sonce each problem us usually different to the last. RPCs are always a good place to start since the database won't grow unless something's active. --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP
February 6th, 2011 5:24pm

Thanks Rich. For a database growing excessively, would I be correct in thinking that the user causing this would be causing high amounts of RPC activity? Any way to track down, either from Perfmon or Exmon (or anything else)?
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February 11th, 2011 3:13pm

On Fri, 11 Feb 2011 20:05:50 +0000, Neil4933 wrote: >For a database growing excessively, would I be correct in thinking that the user causing this would be causing high amounts of RPC activity? Any way to track down, either from Perfmon or Exmon (or anything else)? The URL that Andy posted is a good place to begin. If the database is growing so must the log files.: http://blogs.technet.com/b/mikelag/archive/2009/07/12/troubleshooting-store-log-database-growth-issues.aspx PerfMon isn't going to be much help identifying an individual generator of RPC activity. For that you need ExMon. --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP
February 11th, 2011 9:34pm

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