Exchange 2003 Public Folders Offline Defrag
-PROBLEM: I need to reclaim space on my Exchange 2003 SP2 - Enterprise Ed. Public Folder server
-CURRENT SIZE of Public Folder Database (EDB): 190GB
-CURRENT SIZE OF DATA IN PUBLIC FOLDERS: 168GB (Obtained by gathering the folder size of each root folder via Outlook client)
-CURRENT SPACE AVAILABLE ON DISK: 5GB
ACTIONS PERFORMED:
-Moved four folders 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 totaling 18.68GB to PST files
-Ran offline defrag utility to reclaim white space by running the following command:
ESEUTIL /d F:\Exchange\PublicFolderSt
-USB Drive with over 900GB of available space is directly connected to the server for temporary storage
RESULTS:
After successfully running the offline defrag, the database size was only reduced by 1GB even though the defrag ran successfully.
QUESTIONs:
Q1. I have another root folder that is a total of over 20GB that I can remove from the system and rerun the Offline Defrag utility. Is there a reason why I only reclaimed such a small amount of space vs what I expected to recover?
Q2. I can also create a new Information Store and Public Folder database on my USB drive, move the databases to it to shrink the EDB size, and then move it back BUT I am unsure how to do this. I've done this successfully in the past with mailboxes but public folders don't seem to have a way to "move" the data..only to replicate. Is this the best option?
Q3. Would it be possible to simply purchase two new hard disks of 500GB each, create an Acronis Workstation image of the server, physically replace the existing drives, load the image and be done?
-CURRENT SIZE of Public Folder Database (EDB): 190GB
-CURRENT SIZE OF DATA IN PUBLIC FOLDERS: 168GB (Obtained by gathering the folder size of each root folder via Outlook client)
-CURRENT SPACE AVAILABLE ON DISK: 5GB
ACTIONS PERFORMED:
-Moved four folders 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 totaling 18.68GB to PST files
-Ran offline defrag utility to reclaim white space by running the following command:
ESEUTIL /d F:\Exchange\PublicFolderSt
-USB Drive with over 900GB of available space is directly connected to the server for temporary storage
RESULTS:
After successfully running the offline defrag, the database size was only reduced by 1GB even though the defrag ran successfully.
QUESTIONs:
Q1. I have another root folder that is a total of over 20GB that I can remove from the system and rerun the Offline Defrag utility. Is there a reason why I only reclaimed such a small amount of space vs what I expected to recover?
Q2. I can also create a new Information Store and Public Folder database on my USB drive, move the databases to it to shrink the EDB size, and then move it back BUT I am unsure how to do this. I've done this successfully in the past with mailboxes but public folders don't seem to have a way to "move" the data..only to replicate. Is this the best option?
Q3. Would it be possible to simply purchase two new hard disks of 500GB each, create an Acronis Workstation image of the server, physically replace the existing drives, load the image and be done?
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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Look in your Application Log on the Exchange server. Event ID 1221 will tell you how much "white space" is in each database, and this is how much space would be recovered by the offline defrag. You're correct in saying that you need to wait for maintenance to run after the retention has been set to 0.
ASKER
This was exactly what needed to happen in order to identify the white space available.
ASKER
I'll let you know how it goes once I know.