DSapseid Posted June 17, 2009 Posted June 17, 2009 My C:\ Drive on my exchange server had 256kb free :eek: so i ran the disk cleanup wizard and got it back to about 70/80mb. I then decided to check the mailbox store in system manager to see if there were any redundant mailboxes that i hadnt deleted, there were about 150 about 20/30 were over 100mb each so i quickly purged these thinking that it would instantly release this space but of course not!! The server is now back down to 13mb free and the services have crashed as they need more space so i am without email i have been through and deleted all the un-install files for msupdates and emptied all temporary files! Is there any way that i can empty these mailboxes that i have deleted? Thanks Dan
AliG Posted June 17, 2009 Posted June 17, 2009 Exchange also creates 5mb log files everyday I have to sometimes del these manually although carefully as some are still in use and valid system files. Look in c:\WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles\W3SVC1\ files start with EX****** if these files are there you could clear several gig of space.
AliG Posted June 17, 2009 Posted June 17, 2009 I also think has default Exchange keeps deleted mailboxes for 30 days after deletion.
apeo Posted June 17, 2009 Posted June 17, 2009 Have you checked how long you keep deleted mailboxes? Have a look in the Mailbox Store properties under limits. Lol AliG beat me to it.
apeo Posted June 17, 2009 Posted June 17, 2009 Exchange also creates 5mb log files everyday I have to sometimes del these manually although carefully as some are still in use and valid system files. Look in c:\WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles\W3SVC1\ files start with EX****** if these files are there you could clear several gig of space. FYI, you can relocate the IIS log directory and you can create a script to delete the logs on a schedule.
DSapseid Posted June 17, 2009 Author Posted June 17, 2009 Exchange also creates 5mb log files everyday I have to sometimes del these manually although carefully as some are still in use and valid system files. Look in c:\WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles\W3SVC1\ files start with EX****** if these files are there you could clear several gig of space. Only about 20 files there totalling 3mb I also think has default Exchange keeps deleted mailboxes for 30 days after deletion. Yep it was now changed to 1 Where abouts are your Mailbox and Log files located? Students Mailstore - D:\Program Files\Exchange Server Staff Mailstore - C:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\MDBDATA Have currently got all staff users that have got rather large mailboxes emptying deleted items and archiving anything over a year old. Oh to top it all some numpty kid just turned the power off to the air con and the server room temp went up to 45C instantly
apeo Posted June 17, 2009 Posted June 17, 2009 Have currently got all staff users that have got rather large mailboxes emptying deleted items and archiving anything over a year old. You can setup a policy to delete mails that are x days old, have a look at this thread: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows/22684-exchange-2003-delete-emails-after-certain-amount-time.html
timzim Posted June 17, 2009 Posted June 17, 2009 Why don't you just move the staff mailstore to the D: drive, or am I missing something?
srochford Posted June 17, 2009 Posted June 17, 2009 Exchange also creates 5mb log files everyday I have to sometimes del these manually although carefully as some are still in use and valid system files. Look in c:\WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles\W3SVC1\ files start with EX****** if these files are there you could clear several gig of space. Exchange creates 2 kinds of log files; the ones you mention are from IIS and are the logs for OWA - as you say, these can (and should!) be deleted regularly. The other log files MUST NOT be deleted manually; they will be deleted when a successful backup takes place. The files will be in the MDBDATA folder - if you have any dated earlier than your last backup then (a) your backup isn't working and (b) they will take up lots of space until your back up works.
SYNACK Posted June 17, 2009 Posted June 17, 2009 Use eseutil to do a defragment and compress of the offending mailbox store using a different drive as a temp area, this should shrink it a bit and also do a backup which should clear out those nasty logs.
DSapseid Posted June 18, 2009 Author Posted June 18, 2009 You can setup a policy to delete mails that are x days old, have a look at this thread: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows/22684-exchange-2003-delete-emails-after-certain-amount-time.html Thanks have set this up Why don't you just move the staff mailstore to the D: drive, or am I missing something? Not enough room on d drive Use eseutil to do a defragment and compress of the offending mailbox store using a different drive as a temp area, this should shrink it a bit and also do a backup which should clear out those nasty logs. may well do this over the weekend on my test server. Can i use the eseutil on another server that is not exchange? I have just managed to shrink one users mailbox size from 1.6gb down to 800mb by emptying the deleted items and setting up archiving to archive everything before the start of last financial year (its the bursars mailbox). Off to see 3 other users with mailboxes over 1.5gb now to try and achieve the same, i presume i will get this data back after the retention time on the emails has gone as discussed earlier??
zag Posted June 18, 2009 Posted June 18, 2009 Just run a backup with backupexec or something, it will purge the log files after this is done.
Fuzzz Posted June 18, 2009 Posted June 18, 2009 Have you checked your badmail foder? Maybe you should consider using quota's.
DSapseid Posted June 18, 2009 Author Posted June 18, 2009 Just run a backup with backupexec or something, it will purge the log files after this is done. Just ran a backup job on backup exec and it got halfway through and it stopped because the exchange server filled the c drive again even though i just cleared 150mb on it so it stopped the services and the backup job failed!!! There is 410mb of E000****.log worth of log files in c:\program files\exchsrvr\mdbdata that is obviously what the backup will achieve but it cant complete because it fills the damn drive up to quickly Is there a way i can stop users from connecting to it but still let the backup server see it to do the backup?? as what i think is doing is that its where the users are recieving new emails and then this then copies the emails onto the exchange server!! Have you checked your badmail foder? Maybe you should consider using quota's. What is a badmail folder??? Yes i have considered using quotas but this exchange server was set up before my time so its set up weirdly! I am having virtual servers installed in 3 weeks and my first job will be to create a nice shiny new exchange server possibly 2007 if im feeling brave
Fuzzz Posted June 18, 2009 Posted June 18, 2009 The badmail folder contains messages that can't be delivered, like NDR's with a non-existant recipient (mostly spammessages). I had this folder filling up and clogging my mailserver once... The way around this is to have your Exchange check wether or not a recipient exists when receiving mail, rather than accept the mail, check for the recipient and when te recipient does not exist, send a NDR (wich, in the case of spam, can't be delivered because the sender address was spoofed). If there are any messages in the badmail folder, just delete them, they can't be delivered anyway...
Fuzzz Posted June 18, 2009 Posted June 18, 2009 I think it's somewhere in C:\Program Files\Exchsrvr (maybe under MDBDATA)... I've moved mine to another drive, so i can't check anymore... If you use search in Explorer and search for 'badmail' you should find it.
apeo Posted June 18, 2009 Posted June 18, 2009 Assuming its in the default location, look in: c:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\Mailroot\vsi 1
SYNACK Posted June 18, 2009 Posted June 18, 2009 may well do this over the weekend on my test server. Can i use the eseutil on another server that is not exchange? Yes should work, I think it is in the bin folder under exchsvr. Should just be sble to copy it and the datastore to a different box for defrag/compress.
m25man Posted June 18, 2009 Posted June 18, 2009 As a rule when sizing the volumes to be used for an exchange database you need at least as much free space as that used by your database and log files. If your exchange database used space is 40Gb then you need 80Gb of total diskspace. The reason for this is so that your exchange maintenance can work properly by making a copy of the database during the maintenance cycle. If you get to the point where your free space is less than your used space the database never compresses properly and it starts to grow rapidly. Space created by deleted items never gets compressed. Once this happens an offline defrag and compress using eseutil becomes essential. If you want to keep your database small keep it on a volume with plenty of space and it will keep itself healthy. Where possible I keep the logs on one volume and the databases on another. Even better keep the databases on an expandable array.
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