Difference between priv1.edb and priv1.stm, need to determine accurate size

here is a corresponding article for this issue, it state Exch 2K but is valid for 2k3 too.
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=828070

there are also links at the bottom explaining the defrag process as well as how to enforce mailbox limits if your users have huge mailboxes.

You might want to ask user to first empty their deleted items and do a bit of house keeping before running eseutil to defrag the database and regain the space.

if you upgrade to enterprise it is a very straight forward process, just the cost involved is quite high

FYI -

If your you need to temporarily raise the limit to 17GB to get your store up and running
http://hellomate.typepad.com/exchange/2003/09/temporarily_inc.html 

Good article discussing the 16GB Limit
http://hellomate.typepad.com/exchange/2004/03/exchange_standa.html

so u guys think the combined total of .stm and .edb almost close to 15.7GB is causing the problem ? and that it is true that the total of both is what the limitation is ? I want to know for sure before i do anything else...please calrify.
I am running EX2K on a Win2K PDC. I have the exchange file on a seperate logical drive which has 40GB and with it using up
thanks!

If the Information Store is mounted, then chances are you are not experiencing the issue, albeit you are probably closing in ... let me look at the other link and see if I can help

SHUING!!!
that article verified my Q
http://hellomate.typepad.com/exchange/2004/03/exchange_standa.html

OH MY GOD!!!! i never thought this would happend to me! so it has happend, guys i appreciate your help so much, i initially posted here and delted thought the problem was an Outlook and posted it there, shouldn't have done it! but now that it is confirmed that i am closing in on my 16GB limit what will happen, mail will stop coming in ?! i'll do the degrag after hours today, whats the other option ?!
Please help!

I just raised the points to 500, i need help!

the IS will dismount until you regain space as specified above using a defrag or upping the limit temp to 17Gb or by upgrading to enterprise edition

If you go into cached mode and disable it all the emails appear ...


You need to check the client settings to make sure the users are synchronizing upon exit ... If the clients are caching data and not synchronizing the deletes back to the server then naturally their mailboxes have probably reached the limit and cannot receive email.

If you have some users still receiving data then your IS is mounted and you are not experiencing issues where the db has reached the maximum limit. I've seen this several times since we have O2K3 in Cached Mode running on several thousand clients ...

A good way to test this is to directly connect to a users mailbox (not using the cached mode) and delete email to bring it under the mailbox restriction limit.
You can also check sizes using System Manager ... expand the server and click on the mailboxes folder ...

If you need more info let me know

above I posted what I believe is your problem for the Outlook issue ...

if you read this article it will explain it all to you, and how to overcome the issue, once again .
1. Defrag
2. Edit registry to up limit to 17Gb (very temp solution)
3. Upgrade to Enterprise edition

plus I would enforce mailbox limits.
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=828070

and here are some more links that will help


Defrag - http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=328804
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=254132
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=192185

Upgrade to enterprise Edition
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=170280

Storage limits
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=319583

and for the registry hack taken from
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=828070


Add the Temporary DB Size Limit Extension registry entry to the computer that is running Exchange 2003 Standard Edition or Exchange 2000 Standard Edition:
Open Registry Editor.

To do this, click Start, click Run, type regedt32.exe in the Open box, and then click OK.
Locate the following key in the registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS\<Exchange Server Name>\Private-<long hexadecimal string>
On the Edit menu, click Add Value, and then type Temporary DB Size Limit Extension in the Value name box.
Click REG_DWORD in the Data Type box, and then click OK.
In the Data box, type 1, and then click OK.
Close Registry Editor.
To prevent new e-mail content from being added to the mailbox store beyond the temporary 17-GB limit during the recovery process, Microsoft strongly recommends that you stop the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) service and the Microsoft Exchange MTA Stacks service (if it is running) before you mount the mailbox store.
Mount your mailbox store.
Remove data from your mailbox store. To do this, use any of these methods:
Use Microsoft Outlook to delete unnecessary e-mail items from individual inboxes and other folders.
Use Outlook to delete unnecessary e-mail items from the Sent Items folder.
Use Outlook to empty the Deleted Items folder.
If deleted item retention is set, you may want to temporarily reduce retention to zero (0) days:
Click Start, point to Programs, point to Microsoft Exchange, and then click System Manager.
Right-click Mailbox Store, and then click Properties.
Click the Limits tab, and then type 0 in the Keep deleted items for days box.
Delete mailboxes that are no longer used.
Use the Move Mailbox tool to move mailboxes to a mailbox store that is on another Exchange server.
Have users create personal folder (.pst) files on their local hard drives and then archive content from the mailbox store database to their local hard drives.
After you remove data from your mailbox store, you must let online maintenance run so that items are marked for permanent deletion before you run an offline defragmentation.

By default, online maintenance is scheduled to run every night from 1:00 AM to 5:00 AM. To force online maintenance to run immediately, follow these steps:
Open Exchange System Manager.

To do this, click Start, point to Programs, point to Microsoft Exchange, and then click System Manager.
Double-click the Exchange server, and then double-click Storage Group.
Right -click Mailbox Store, and then click Properties.
Click the Database tab, and then click Customize to modify the schedule to run immediately.

Note Online maintenance may take up to 30 minutes to start and several hours to complete. When online maintenance has started, the following event ID message is logged in the application event log:
Event Type: Information
Event Source: ESE
Event Category: Online Defragmentation
Event ID: 700
Description: MSExchangeIS (170) Online Defragmentation is beginning a full pass on database 'C:\exchsrvr\mdbdata\priv1.edb'.

View the application event log to verify that online maintenance of your mailbox store is complete. Event ID1221 indicates that online maintenance is complete. This event ID message also indicates how much free space there will be on your mailbox store after offline defragmentation. Event ID 1221 appears similar to the following message:
Event Type: Information
Event Source: MSExchangeIS Mailbox Store
Event Category: General
Event ID: 1221
Description: The database Storage Group Name\Mailbox Store has 565 megabytes of free space after online defragmentation has terminated.

Run an offline defragmentation of your mailbox store by using the Eseutil tool (Eseutil.exe).

You must dismount the mailbox store before you run an offline defragmentation, and you must have free disk space equal to at least 110% of the database size to run eseutil /d. If you do not designate a temporary location for the database file by using the t command, the temporary location is automatically set to the Exchsrvr/Bin folder. In the example in this step, X is a temporary drive letter location for the defragmented database on your hard disk or a network drive. After you run the eseutil /d command on your mailbox store, you must dismount all the stores in the storage group and remove any log files in the Mdbdata folder before you remount the database. The time to complete an offline defragmentation varies depending on factors such as the hardware involved or whether the temporary database is redirected to a network drive. The following command is an example of the command line that you use to run the Eseutil tool:
exchsrvr\bin\eseutil /d "location of .edb file" /tX:\tempdfg.edb

Note When you defragment an .edb database file, the associated .stm file is defragmented also.
For additional information about how to use the Eseutil tool, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
328804 How to defragment Exchange databases

254132 Eseutil /d defragments the database and the streaming file

192185 XADM: How to defragment with the Eseutil utility (Eseutil.exe)

Mount your databases and make backups.
Note Alternatively, you can permanently solve this issue by upgrading to Exchange Server 2003 Enterprise Edition. Exchange 2003 Enterprise Edition does not have a 16-GB limit on the mailbox store database. For additional information about how to upgrade from Exchange Server Standard Edition to Exchange Server Enterprise Edition, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

I much appreciate your help, i will go thru all the documentation and hopefully can salvage the situation, i just sent out an email saying that i am taking the exchange server down, any idea how long the offline defrag takes, i would like to go thru the docs, will post if i have any further questions.

thanks

roughly about 4Gb per hour, perhaps higher depending on the speed of your disks and bus architecture on the server.

If you run eseutil, you will want to make sure you get a good backup before and after ...

thanks...
I went through the doc's got a good idea of esutil and the options.
It just mentions to dismount the mailbox store.
any recommendations on turning of the exchange services ?

I am just gonna copy the actual priv1.edb to another disk and do another one after the esutil is complete, is that OK ?

you can either dismount or stop the store, either will do.
if you use a copy then you must specify the path to the copy that you are going to use, but i would see this as unneccesary if you have a good backup, better if the backup was offline.

if it's not a good time now, you might want to up the limit to 17gb start the store, and wait until a quieter time in the evening then do the defrag and put the reg limit back to what it was

yes, i will dismount the store copy priv1.edb to another location and then run esutil on the original copy, any recommendation for/against  /p option ? the /p option would save me the trouble of copying the file to another location before i start the defrag, from what i understand, by running the /p option is that i would need to move/rename the original priv1.edb and then rename/place the newly created .edb file in its place.

I would copy all of your log files as well ... this way you have a copy of the database and logs and if anything happens you should be able to get the server back up and running ....

thanks for the tip very helpful

there is no problem with the /p option, but do make certain you have at least about 18 - 19 Gb available on that drive

If you put your copies on the same drive you aren't going to have enough disk space ... you need 100-150% of free space to run the offline defrag

yes i do, the drive is 47GB i have 31GB free.
I was shutting down the exchange services to copy the log files and the server crashed with a BOSD, i wonder what caused it, its coming back up now, i hope nothing fatal.

Make sure you can start the IS and that the database is in a consistent state ... also note any errors in the application or system logs

Guys, thanks to both of you for you assistance, I was there till 1AM finishing the defrad which took 17772 seconds. And then it took me 188 Minutes moving the defraged files back over to my exchange folder, i guess everything is working fine, i won't be back in  the office till Monday, will report on the results then.
I will split points between both of you, BN, i gave you points on the Outlook Q, so I will split this accordingly so your points between both the q's will be the same as Colins for this one.

I have one more Q open if you guys want to take a shot at it, it is not a technical issue more of a how to issue...
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/21116977/Mailbox-Use-among-Multiple-Users.html

have a great weekend, and thanks once again

glad it's sorted, and nice fair decision over split points,thx!