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What happens (and what to do) when I run out of disk space for the exchange 2010 store?

My new server has been up and running for 1 year now.  I noticed the server's c drive has gone from 60 GB free to 30 GB free.  The only software on the server's c drive is the operating system and microsoft exchange 2010.

I archived over 3 GB of e-mail to my desktop computer, but the server's c drive does not report any size difference.

What can be done to resolve this issue?

Thank you for your help.
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V4705
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Never use C drive for databases.
Create a new, large, partition and move your database to it. it can be done from EMC.
BTW, make sure your backups are always on time, full system backups should delete old logs and free some storage space.
Best thing would be to move the exchange database and log files to 2 separate drives.

But for now you can use Eseutil to do an offline defrag in order to shrink the database.

Have a look at the following for steps to accomplish it: http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2010/management-administration/eseutil-part2.html 
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WeThePeople

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Dell Technicians did the complete installation of Exchange 2010 and Windows Server 2008-R2.  They put both of those on the c drive.  

I do have another partition, the D drive, where all of our client data is located.  It does have 340 GB free.  But even then, the d drive will evenutally run out of space as well.  

Since all the user's have there archive settings set as:  Archive all mail folders every 14 days for all items over 3 months old, why does that not solve the problem?

Regardless of whether I use the c drive or the d drive, the size of the database must be decreased.  How do I force it to decrease in size?

As mentioned in my post you can use Eseutil to shrink the database.

With regards to the archiving, in exchange 2010 if you have archiving enabled it creates an additional mailbox per user where all the archived data gets stored, so it does not matter how frequently the mails gets archived it will still take up space on your drive.

If you are not using exchange 2010 archiving then defraging the database should do the trick.

Hope this helps!!!  
We are not using Exchange 2010 archiving.  All user's are using Outlook 2010 archiving.  Also, the entire server is backed up every night.  The Exchange database is 29 GB in size.


So even if I did what you suggest:  "Best thing would be to move the exchange database and log files to 2 separate drives.", the drive containing the database will eventually become full and require offline deframentation.  Is this the normal routine?  Do all administrators out there, who are using Exchange 2010 have to dismount the database and defrag it frequently to recover disk space?  Should I simply do this every 3 months whether it needs it or not?
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Hendrik Wiese
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If you are having free space on other drive move the databases to that drive.
You can simply use this script in shell :

move-DatabasePath -Identity 'MBX DB1' -EdbFilePath 'C:\MailboxDB\DB1\MBX_DB1.edb' -LogFolderPath 'C:\MailboxDB\DB1_Logs

You can do the same using EMC :
 Organization Configuration > Mailbox > Database Management tab > select the database you want to configure.

In the work pane, click Move Database Path  and give location.

Check this.