I'm having an issue where, after moving mailboxes from one mailbox store to another, exchange is not releasing the space from the original mailbox store (at least not in the hard drive). The environment is Exchange 2003 Enterprise SP2, w2k3 sp2. So, originally my exchange store (priv1.edb) was about 60Gb and after moving mailboxes with about 45Gbs to other mailbox stores, priv1.edb is still about 60Gbs. I set the Deletion Settings to keep deleted items for 7 days and keep deleted mailboxes for 4days. It's been over a week and a half, and I still don't see the space released in the hard drive. Anyone have any thoughts? Thanks! Ivan

Hi!! I think you have not run the Exchange Defragmentation yet after removing the space from datbase. There are lot of articles available on net and MS site. Just look for eseutil command which has defragmentation paramenter (eseutil /d i think). You should have double the space of database on your drive where exchange database is installed to run the defragmentation command. I hope this will solve your problem.

Hi Ivan, You will have to ensure that the Exchange online defragmentation has had a chance to free up the space in the database. This normally runs overnight between 1am and 5am from memory. If you also have a backup running at this time, the online defragmentation will not be able to run. Once an online defragmentation has completed you will get a event log on the Exchange server stating that the Exchange database has xx amount of free space. You will then be able to perform a off line defragmenation using the ESEUTIL /D command. Cheers, Rhys