Exchange 2003: This database has exceeded the size limit of 75 GB

Check the Event Id 1221 on the Mailbox Store and Public Folder store to make sure sufficient white space is avilable on the database

White Space (Recyclable Space) indiactes how much space could be recovered by an offline defragmentation

If you have sufficient white space then go for offline defrag ,if you do not have sufficient white space then generate more white space by informing end users to download any old Data to Personal folder (PST) and then check white space and run offline defrag

For Offline Defarg :
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1) Make sure you have taken the complete Backup of Both the Exchange Database

2) Exchange offline Defrage Require 110% of Free Space to Defrage Exchange Store ,
If Mailbox Store Database size is 60 GB then you need atleast 70 GB of free disk space on the server
(Check Event Id 1216 for Database Size)

3) Make sure you have taken sufficient Down time to run offline defrag on exchange database
(4GB of Database Defrage Require 1 Hour to Complete (60 GB of Database Require Approx 15 Hours)

Have you check the size of the database files? If so how big are they?

You either need to get your users to delete some mail, lower the store retention period and defragment the database or start thinking seriously about upgrading to Exchange 2010.

Than you. The white space already has 10 mb which means it will not help if I just run the offline defrag.
I will have to archive some mailbox to pst as viralrathod mentioned right? and then do off-line defrag?

but I remember there shouldn't be back pressure as exchange 2007... did I misunderstand something?

Also I don't understand what this mean in the event viewer:
>>However, the logical free space in this database has not yet been evaluated. Therefore, it is possible that this database contains enough free space to bring its logical size below the maximum size limit.

What's the difference between physical and logical size?  my physical size now is 76GB... and how can I find out the logical size? if the logical size below 75 GB... does that mean i don't need offline-defrag?

So right now my exchange 2003 standard has 75 GB databsse limit, so I can just archive some mailbox in pst without having to do offline defrag right?

For example: if after archiving mailboxes, the white space should be increased and if I got 10 gb of white space. Then 76 GB - 10 GB = 66 GB, so it will be still under the limit right?  So i don't need to do offline defrag correct? and when will be the time I need to do offline defrag?

To change the retention period, please refer to the following article:

http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/MF022.html

thank you so much. So are you saying my what I say in my last post is correct? and I don't need to do offline defrag in this case right?  when is the case i need to run offline defrag? is it only when the physical hard disk running out of space?

If I don't do offline defrag and I got 10 gb of white space after archiving.
76 GB (physical size) - 10 GB (white space)  = 66 GB
So it's still under 75 GB limit -> ok ?

If I do a offline defrag after, then the physical size will be 66GB and white space = 0 GB right?

Offline defrag is useful to reclaim disk space only.

Your last post is 99% there, but without reducing the mailstore retention, you would have to wait 30 days (default), until the mail you archived becomes whitespace.

If you archive and reduce the retention period, your store size (virtual) will be under the 75gb limit and will stop dismounting daily.

Thank you for your great help. I got your idea. And can you tell me that if I do a offline defrag, will the white space become 0? And if I do offline defrag after archiving, do I still need to change the detention setting?

>>>If you archive 10gb of mail from the store and the mailstore retention period is set to 30 days, then run a defrag, you won't reclaim the 10gb of space.

Really?!! I always though that after I did archiving and run offline defrag, the physical database would gain 10 GB free space right away......  I was totally wrong!

Is there a way I can setup alert so i will know it before the disaster?  

even I archive those emails to a pst file, I will still need to manually delete emails in the mailbox right? I remember exporting pst file will not delete any emails

I am not aware of a way to set up alerts.

When you archive, you are moving mail from the mailstore to a .pst file which will remove the mail from the server, so deleting is not necessary.

Hi Alan, I haven't started doing archiving but I tried to set the retention to 0 for both deleted items and mailboxes. But it seems it didn't happen right away..... As I still can see in exchange ESE, the "deleted items under each user's account still not became 0. is there any way to force it happen?

So in this case, will same thing happen even after I archive emails?

retension.jpg

Worst case - restart the Information Store service.

tried that already didn't help... I also tried to restart other exchange service. I am wondering if this will only happen when online defrag schedule kick in

What does the latest event id 1221 show in the Application Event Log?

I checked that and it seems after the maintenance run it took effect, now I can see all the deleted items under all user accounts became "0"
I thought it should take effect after we put retention to 0 though..... any idea?

That was my understanding too!

Hi Alan, I just archive a user's mailbox which has around 7 GB. after that changed the schedule and let online maintenance to run right away. But this morning, I found it only got 2gb white space.... any reason why?

Are the mailbox / mailstore retention settings still set at 0?

yes, it's still set to 0

It could be down to Single Instance Storage!

An explanation extracted from here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/175481

Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5, Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 maintain single-instance storage of messages.

If a message is sent to one recipient, and if the message is copied to 20 other recipients who reside in the same mailbox store, Exchange Server maintains only one copy of the message in its database. Exchange Server then creates pointers.