Exchange server problem

[dezt]

My exchange server has finally given up all it's free space, we currently have 2.5Mb of free space on the drive that the mailboxes are stored on. What i'm after is a bit of advice on how to sort this out with as little effort as possible.#

 

I'm thinking of building a new server, installing exchange 2003 and migrating the mailboxes accross to that, then replacing the old servers hard drive and taking the mailboxes back to that server.

 

The reason i was thinking of doing that was so I don't have to change the exchange account for all users in their profiles.

 

Is there an easier way of upgrading the hard drive size for the mailboxes or is this the best bet?

 

The server is quite old and has a 20Gb raid array setup which is full now, could I add a hard drive to the server, for instance an ide drive and store the mailboxes on that?

[webman]

If you are looking long-term to upgrade to a new server, then I think this would be an ideal time to do it.

 

Are the disks basic or dynamic? If dynamic, in theory you can add another disk and expand the dynamic disk into the new one. However, I don't know how or if this would interfere with the RAID setup. Given how sensitive some RAID configurations can be, I would leave that as-is.

[dezt]

Ideally I would love to upgrade to a new server, but SLT in their wisdom have spent most, if not all their money on other projects and have at a guess nothing left for me to use for a new server. It will probably be short term until i can get funds for a new server.

 

The raid is setup on a hardware raid controller and the drive is a basic disk.

 

Time to get the begging bowl out i think

[srochford]

Can you fit a new big IDE/SATA/anything drive inside the server? If so, it's trivial to move the store onto that new drive and that will buy you time while you setup a new server and move the mail across to it.

 

there's a Microsoft KB article which details the process

 

You really want to do this ASAP, even if it's only a temporary fix - I'm amazed Exchange is still running at all with so little space and it certainly won't be happy!

[dezt]

Moved log files and mailboxes to a large ide hard drive for the short term, until i can get a new server.

 

Thanks to everyone for helping