Mail Store over the 75gb limit on standard 03, cleared out junk but change in size not reflected on store

Question

Our mailstore is over the 75gb limit, and even though I've removed almost 12 gigs from our postmaster account, the change isn't reflected in the .edb & .stm files. I read I can defrag the mailstore, but since this will need me to dismount the mailstore, I'll have to try that after work hours.

Any ideas how to lower the .edb/.stm files?

Error " Exchange store "First Storage Group\Mailbox Store' The logical size of this database is 75 G. This database as exceeded the size limit of 75 GB.

Answer 1

The only thing that can reduce the on disk size of the database is an offline defragmentation. Here's Microsoft's KB article on how to accomplish this:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/328804

You should probably also adjust your mailbox limits to keep this from happening again. Be as rigid as possible with these. Everybody wants more storage but not everybody should have more storage.

Also, you should have a look at this article. Exchange is really complaining about the logical size of the database, not the physical size: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996139%28EXCHG.65%29.aspx

Answer 2

I have stood exactly where you're standing with Small Business Server 2003.

Stroll over to the "Limits" tab of your Mailbox Store's properties. A few notables:

1. Keep deleted items for (days)
2. Keep deleted mailboxes for (days)
3. Do not permanently delete mailboxes and items until the store has been backed up

These often explain why deletions are not reflected immediately. In a pinch, you can temp-modify these policies and/or issue a disk-based NTBackup before remounting. Be careful! :)