Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of sguido
sguido

asked on

Exchange 2013 Database Rapidly Growing

Hello Experts,

We have an issue where the Exchange DB is rapidly growing.  We isolated the issue to a particular user and when the user disconnects his outlook exchange db stops growing.  What's interesting here is that even though the DB is growing, while the user is connected, his mailbox is not.
Avatar of Will Szymkowski
Will Szymkowski
Flag of Canada image

Rapid growth of logs are usually due to DAG or activesync connections. I would check how many devices this user has connected.

Will.
Avatar of sguido
sguido

ASKER

the logs are not growing, the edb file is.
For the database to grow, there must be associated logs.
Everything the database does generates transaction logs.

If you have pinned it down to a single user then the first thing I would do is move the user to another database. That will resolve a lot of problems with mailboxes.
If that does resolve the problem, monitor the free space in the database

Get-MailboxDatabase -Status | Select Servername, Name, AvailableNewMailboxSpace

If the space is large, then you will need to move all users out of the database, drop the database to release the space and then create a new one.

Simon.
Mailbox size just gives the size without considering the Recoverable Items Folder. This will reflect in the size of the database.
Run this command to see if the user is deleting emails.
Get-MailboxFolderStatistics userid|where {$_.identity -like "*recoverable*"}|fl identity, itemsinfolder, folderandsubfoldersize
I would suggest you to run EXMON Microsoft Exchange Server User Monitor (ExMon) tool and check which user / computer are sending high amount of data packets (It might be possible that any user computer on the network is infected with virus and is sending high amount of data packets (Spam E-mails).

In my case one of the computer was infected with viruses and was sending too many spam e-mails to exchange server results EDB database size was growing quickly.
Avatar of sguido

ASKER

@pcmghouse - we checked the recoverable items for that user and it wasn't growing at all.    
@viral - if his computer had virus and he was sending mail, his mailbox would be growing, and it's not.

When the user is not in cached mode, the computer is not generating traffic and our DB is fine.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of Simon Butler (Sembee)
Simon Butler (Sembee)
Flag of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Avatar of sguido

ASKER

yes i agree, there's definitely something wrong with the computer, i'm just still baffled how the db grows but there's nowhere to show for that space.
I hope you checked the receoverable items while outlook is running on the users pc.

what about checking the size of the mailbox (folders) while you are in outlook. any drastic changes there? As simon suggests best way is to remove the outlook profile and clear the cache folder. then recreate outlook profile and wait until it syncs. then again check the mailbox size.

may be you should look at other mailboxes. DB size increase may not be immediate, as the changes first go to the logs.

get-transportservice|get-queue should suggest if there are any drastic set of emails coming in or going out.
or run a command to get message tracking for this user.
get-transportservice|get-messagetrackinglog -sender usersemail -start "06/04/2015"
get-transportservice|get-messagetrackinglog -recipients usersemail -start "06/04/2015"
Avatar of sguido

ASKER

As suspected, recreating OST fixed the issue.  Still doesn't explain how the db could grow while the mailbox, including unrecoverable items, did not.   @pcmghouse - there was nothing in the queue, regardless, messages in the queue have no impact on the db until they are stored via storedriver.

sguido - I am facing similar issue on one of the databases and after checking mailbox statistics I hardly see any drastic changes in mailboxes size. How can I identify the corrupted mailboxes in my case.


Regards,

fruitz