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Exchange 2013 mailbox issue

Tom Cieslik
Tom Cieslik asked
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Exchange 2013 mailbox issue

Hi friends.
I would like to ask someone with Exchange expertise for advice

Last time my Veritas backup exec screwed my Exchange server. In process of backup for over 2 weeks start created new maiilbox snapshot so after 2 weeks I've got 10 VM snapshots.
This caused my incremental backup to take 19 hours to complete.

I've decide to delete snapshot from VM console but somethings went wrong and after restart one of my databases reported error.
I've restored database from backup so all works good now.  Never mind, but I've notices strange situation on one of my mailbox.

I have user with unlimited quota and Exchange is showing his mailbox size over 31 GB, but when I've checked his Outlook 2016 folder, the size of OST file is only 4GB and settings for his outlook is to use cache mode so I don;t understand why information store is showing 7x more taken space.

 

 

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Ibrahim BennaTechnology Lead

Commented:
Is Outlook cached mode configured to cache the entire mailbox or just last one year (which I believe is the default)?
PRADIIP SINGH

Commented:
Check the content in mailbox or try to move the mailbox to different DB or try to repair the mailbox
Tom CieslikIT Engineer
Distinguished Expert 2017

Author

Commented:
Yes, I did moved this mailbox to different database. No change, and like I said there is cashed mode enabled in Exchange.
I'm not sure what is the real mailbox size in this moment and since is only 4GB then on backup is going 31GB.... so is taking to long and taking to much space on the tape and NAS
Ibrahim BennaTechnology Lead

Commented:
Tom,

Can you confirm what is the configuration of the cached mode on user's Outlook? By that, I mean how long is the cached configured for? By default, Outlook profiles with cached mode enabled will only cache the last 1 year worth of mail on user's computer. The OST file will only be 31GB IF you have manually changed the settings to cache the entire mailbox - is this the case?
2020-02-10-SNAG--0067.jpg
IT Engineer
Distinguished Expert 2017
Commented:
I had to delete and create whole Windows email profile from scratch and in process of configuring Microsoft Outlook cash mode, move bar all way down to the right,
Then all emails started synchronize to the new OST file and I saw on Outlook task bar information that 22GB will be synchronize to Inbox.

I don't know what's happen before but now is working. I think whole profile was corrupted.
Mike LazarusAct! Evangelist - CRM Consultant

Commented:

Don't use Snapshots

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/plan-and-deploy/virtualization?view=exchserver-2019 

Some hypervisors include features for taking snapshots of virtual machines. Virtual machine snapshots capture the state of a virtual machine while it's running. This feature enables you to take multiple snapshots of a virtual machine and then revert the virtual machine to any of the previous states by applying a snapshot to the virtual machine. However, virtual machine snapshots aren't application aware, and using them can have unintended and unexpected consequences for a server application that maintains state data, such as Exchange. As a result, making virtual machine snapshots of an Exchange guest virtual machine isn't supported.