exchange 2007 sp2 c drive nearly full!

[chazzy2501]

I was wondering if it's possible to clean up old emails from the server side. I'm going to alter archiving for staff as they have outlook but the pupils only use owa. Can I set a policy on how old a read email can be?

 

cheers

 

any other suggestions would also be cool, I have a limited understanding of the exchange database and try not to fiddle. But if the C drive fills up again I've no idea how to resolve the issue. I could move the database but that scares the hell outta me!

[ChrisH]

Have you been backing it up regularly so the transaction/log files (can't remember which exactly) get cleared? What OS is it Installed on?

[sukh]

1. Check where your database and logs files are located. If they're on the same drive as C: then I would move them to another drive. Get more disks for your server and locate the database and log files on separate spindles.

 

2. Make sure your backs are working, either do full or incremental so your transaction logs get cleared.

 

3. Set some mailbox limits so your database doesn't grow unexpectedly or doesn't get abused by users.

 

4.Think about MRM and maybe introduce policies to maintain mailboz items, such as clearing deleted items after x days, or removing certain attach$ents such as mp3 etc.

 

5. You may want to create a mew database, move mailboxes and delete the old one to reduce thje physical database size.

[chazzy2501]

it's running on 2003 64bit but it's a VM. Yes the database is on the C: drive. I learnt my lessons about the transaction logs a while ago when I moved to VM and no longer performed regular backups! (now backup the VM using vranger) I run a windows backup to an old PC just to deal with the logs.

 

As I didn't setup exchange and don't create databases or move mailboxes all that seems frought with danger to me!

 

I was thinking I could expand the D: drive then move the datastore accross but I'd have to dismount it move it and remount it and what happens when exchange decides that can't be done.. I'm in poo creek!

 

I'd love to seprate my pupils from the staff datastore if I create a new database can I migrate select mailboxes over to it and impose different quota limits etc.

 

I was also wondering about my OWA users (staff and pupils) as there is no archiving to tidy up older emails what can I do server side?

 

thanks loads...

[sukh]

1.Not sure what's on your D drive. You can either move the DB to the D drive or create a new database on the D drive. May be worht creating a new db that way your edb file will shrink to.

 

2. If you want, create 2 DB on the D rive, one for staff and another for pupile, then move to each DB.

3. What you can do is set mailbox limits, send/reciove limits, if storage permist create an archive DB for them and enable personal archives.

4. You can use MRM and managed default folder to do housekeeping, i.e create policies to delete mail tems over certain age and/or delete items from the deleted itmes folder, as some users keep this as a filing systems etc..