Mailbox database Size

Hi,
   I have DAG enabled Exchange Server 2010 installed with three mailbox databases having sizes 282GB,162GB and 129GB respectively. I have started with a total of 250GB in 2010 and now it has reached a size more than 650GB.
   It has become very difficult to take the backup of such huge database files now and restoring it in case of a DR.
   Presently I have not enabled online archiving in any of these mailboxes mainly because most of the PCs are installed with outlook 2007 which doesn't show online archive.Of course OWA is another candidate to see those mails.
   Please suggest a best practice to reduce the size of these mailbox databases without losing any of the mails.
Thanks
Thomas

As mentioned above, Exchange database files do not shrink.  
If you do a defrag, then since you have copies of this DB in the DAG then you have to reseed.  take a look at this
http://blogs.technet.com/b/rmilne/archive/2013/08/23/offline-defrag-and-dag-databases_2c00_-oh-my_2100_.aspx
Cheers,
Rhoderick
Microsoft Senior Exchange PFE
Blog:
http://blogs.technet.com/rmilne 
Twitter:   LinkedIn:
  Facebook:
  XING:
Note: Posts are provided “AS IS” without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose.

Similar Messages

  • What is the best practice on mailbox database size in exchange 2013

    Hi, 
    does anybody have any links to good sites that gives some pros/cons when it comes to the mailbox database sizes in exchange 2013? I've tried to google it - but hasn't found any good answers. I would like to know if I really need more than 5 mailbox databases
    or not on my exchange environment. 

    Hi
       As far as I know, 2TB is recommended maximum database size for Exchange 2013 databases.
       If you have any feedback on our support, please click
    here
    Terence Yu
    TechNet Community Support

  • Best practice on mailbox database size & we need how many server for deployment exchange server 2013

    Dear all,
    We have  an server that runs Microsoft exchange server 2007 with the following specification:
    4 servers: Hub&CAS1 & Hub&CAS2 & Mailbox1 & Mailbox2 
    Operating System : Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise x64
    6 mailbox databases
    1500 Mailboxes
    We need to upgrade our exchange server from 2007 to 2013 to fulfill the following requirment:
    I want to upgrade the exchange server 2007 to exchange server 2013 and implement the following details:
    1500 mailboxes
    10GB or 15GB mailbox quota for each user
    How many
    servers and databases  are
    required for this migration<ins cite="mailto:Mohammad%20Ashouri" datetime="2014-05-18T22:41"></ins>?
    Number of the servers:
    Number of the databases:
    Size of each database:
    Many thanks.

    You will also need to check server role requirement in exchange 2013. Please go through this link to calculate the server role requirement : http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2013/05/14/released-exchange-2013-server-role-requirements-calculator.aspx
    2TB is recommended maximum database size for Exchange 2013 databases.
    Here is the complete checklist to upgrade from exchange 2007 to 2013 : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff805032%28v=exchg.150%29.aspx
    Meanwhile, to reduce the risks and time consumed during the completion of migration process, you can have a look at this proficient application(http://www.exchangemigrationtool.com/) that would also be
    a good approach for 1500 users. It will help you to ensure the data security during the migration between exchange 2007 and 2013.

  • Mailbox database size before & after backup

    Hi there
    i recently made a similar thread and someone told me that i should do it here so here is my issue :
    i've been assigned to do a specific report related to exchange and its backup 
    so what we want is a report that would give us the global size of all our mailbox databases before and after the backup ( even the size of the logs before and after)
    (example : we have a mailbox database X: , we need to go inside the data folder, and retrieve the size of the .edb
    then do the same thing with the logs, go inside the logs folder, and retrieve the logs size )
    i was wondering if anyone ever managed to pull a script that does similar things, given the fact that i ve never worked with powershell and my knowledge is kinda limited in that area
    Thanks

    Hi Amassuo,
    for finished scripts that do things, check out the
    gallery. If you want to learn powershell (I might be biased, but I highly recommend it), check out the
    learning center.
    Regarding your specific issue, you can check the free space on a specific disk by running this powershell command:
    Get-WmiObject win32_logicaldisk -Filter "DeviceID = 'C:'" | Select -ExpandProperty FreeSpace
    Comparing before/after will get you the space differential (adapt drive letter in filter as needed).
    Cheers and good luck with your script,
    Fred
    There's no place like 127.0.0.1

  • What is the Exchange 2010 maximum mailbox database size that is support by MS in a single DAG environment?

    My Exchange setup:
    Exchange 2010 Enterprise
    2 mailbox servers
    2 CAS, 2 HT
    12 mailbox databases. The total of all databases combine is about 2TB. The largest mailbox databases are 530GB, 250GB, and 196GB. Are this over the supported recommendations?
    bl

    2TB, look at the second article but best practice 200GB or less 
    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/exchange/en-US/48431bab-4049-47db-9a84-359d5123d247/what-is-the-maximum-supported-database-size-in-exchange-2010-
    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/exchange/en-US/f96892b3-8e2d-4eef-b64a-4cbc0097396d/ideal-size-for-exchange-mailbox-database

  • Mailbox database size limit

    Hello,
    is there any limit for size of mailbox database file (.edb)? I found in some articles, that limit is 2TB. What happen, if this limit is reached? 
    Thanks
    Br,
    Jan

    The maximum supported size for a database is 16 TB.  However, it's best practice to keep it around 2TB assuming your going with a DAG.  I like to start out with 1 TB, and grow it from there if i really need to.
    https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee832792(v=exchg.150).aspx#Best
    Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread

  • Mailbox Database Size/White Space Reduction in a DAG

    I have several large databases in which I'm moving mailboxes off of in an attempt to prevent my LUNs from running out of disk space. As well, I have several mailboxes of users who have left the company. My questions are as follows:
    1. When I run remove-mailbox -id "some mailbox" -permanent $true, the mailbox is deleted from Exchange relatively instantly. Will Exchange recoup the white space that is left behind after the mailbox has been deleted so that the
    database shrinks in size? Or will it just start writing over the white space rather than growing the size of the database?
    2. Perataining to mailboxes that have been moved, if "Keep Deleted Mailboxes for" is set to 4 days on the database that holds mailboxes that I'm moving off, will the database hold onto the mailbox (even though it has successfully been moved to
    another database) for the duration of the "Keep Deleted Mailboxes for" setting? Or will the mailbox be hard deleted after the move completes successfully?
    3. As part of Online Maintenance, will Exchange defrag a databse and decrease the white space, thereby shrinking the database size or will I have to take it offline to do that?
    4. What are the procedures to perform an Offline Defrag of an Exchange Databse? How risky is this?

    Hello,
    To answer your questions:
    1.   When and online database defrag completes a pass on the database it will reclaim this as whitespace in the database. It will not however reclaim space on the disk by shrinking the .edb file. An offline defrag is required for that.
    2.   Moved mailbox will not be hard deleted until the 4 day retention period has past, unless you manually purge them using Remove-StoreMailbox.
    3.   Related to the answer for number 1. Exchange will fill whitespace as mailboxes grow, but it will not reclaim disk space.
    4.   In a DAG you will you need to dismount the mailbox database and run eseutil /d against the active database copy. This is a relatively low risk procedure, but requires databases to be offline thus interrupting mailbox access. It can also
    take quite along time depending on the database size. The rate of defrag estimated by MS is 9 GB/hr. Here is a reference:
    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/192185/en-us
    For these types of situations my preference (If disk space allows) is to move all mailboxes to a fresh database then delete the database with excessive white space

  • Filter Mailbox database by size in Exchange 2007

    How do I filter the mailbox database to determine mailbox size, i.e. users who are near their limit.

    Hi,
    Please try to use the cmdlet like
    Get-Mailbox -Database "Mailbox Database"
    -retrieves a summary list of all mailboxes in the mailbox database named Mailbox Database.
    Get-Mailbox -Server EXCH01
    -retrieves a summary list of all mailboxes on the server named EXCH01.
    Get-MailboxStatistics -Database MailboxDatabase
    -retrieves the mailbox statistics for all mailboxes in the mailbox database named MailboxDatabase.
    Get-MailboxStatistics -Server EXCH01
    -retrieves the mailbox statistics for all mailboxes on the server named EXCH01
    find it here http://www.windowsadmin.info/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=116
    Regards from www.windowsadmin.info

  • What is the preferred NTFS cluster size of a disk where a mailbox database will installed on?

    I'm testing the 2013 Exchange deployment in our lab environment. We do have a 2010 Exchange server where mailbox databases are installed on disks formatted 64k (65536 bytes in each allocation unit). Is this also recommended for Exchange 2013?
    Remco

    Hi 
    HI
    NTFS allocation unit size
    NTFS allocation unit size represents the smallest amount   of disk space that can be allocated to hold a file.
    Supported: All allocation unit sizes.
    Best practice: 64 KB for both .edb and log file   volumes.
    Supported: All allocation unit sizes.
    Best practice: 64 KB for both .edb and log file   volumes.
    http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee832792(v=exchg.150).aspx
    Volume configurations for the Exchange 2013 Mailbox server role
    If you have any feedback on our support, please click
    here
    Terence Yu
    TechNet Community Support

  • Exchange 2010 - mailbox database in a DAG different sizes

    HI
    After a recent health check on our Exchange 2010 (SP3) environment I noticed that our mailboxes databases in the DAG, which consists of 4 Exchange Servers, had used
     different capacity.
    Could someone why the mounted database and the 3 healthy copies are not the same size?
    Many thanks

    Hi,
    Based on your description, the active database and passive database have different size.
    Apart from Willard Martin's suggestions, please update database copy using the following command and then check result.
    Update-MailboxDatabaseCopy -Identity DB -SourceServer activeserver
    Please make sure the passive databae copy has healthy state.
    Best regards,
    Belinda Ma
    TechNet Community Support

  • Mailbox Databases - 1500 users Exchange 2010 DAG

    I have the following setup for a 5 server DAG setup and would like to know the recommended setup for high availability for all user databases. I would like the databases copied to several DAG members servers, but am unsure as to how i should stagger the
    database replication. Please see the drive sizes below and send me feedback/recommendations.
    Each of my DAG member servers (mailbox servers) has the following storage space available:
    C:\60GB(O/S), D:\1TB(Mailboxes), E:\1TB(Mailboxes) F:\(logs)
    How many databases should i create to maximize efficiency and give best user performance/experience?
    To how many DAG member servers should i copy the database in order to achieve a reasonable amount of High Availability?
    Again, I have 1500 users and 2TB per server to accommodate mailbox databases.
    Users average 500MB mailbox quotas.
    Can i create the DAG replicas on the second drive (E:\) or should i just use both terabyte volumes exclusively for users mailboxes?

    Hi,
    5 members in a DAG and one database created for every member, I suggest you create three copys for a database like the following figure. Any two servers corruption couldn't interrupt any client connection.
    Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
    Sean Xiao
    TechNet Community Support

  • Maximum Database size in exchange 2007

    Hi Team,<o:p></o:p>
    What is the maximum database size we can have in Exchange server 2007 SP3 RU8 standalone server.<o:p></o:p>
    In our environment we have 1800 users hosted on the
    exchange 2007 server with DB size(EDB file) of 1.61TB. What is the maximum size it can grow upto. Any response appreciated.
    Thanks<o:p></o:p>
    Srini<o:p></o:p>

    Amit just beat me to posting Harold Wong's article! :-) Since you're currently on 1.61TB the artificial limit has already been adjust via the registry setting mentioned (the article mentioned 50GB though I've seen others mention 250GB). So the maximum limit
    is 16TB, but whoever adjusted things to allow your current size may have set the artificial limit as something smaller, so you'd want to check the registry to see what it has been set to in your case.
    I'd also echo the comments about database size. Depending on how you handle backups then they may also play a part. Since most backups work on the basis of backing up / restoring the entire database (obviously backing up changes rather than the whole thing
    each time), then the event of you needing to restore it's much easier if you have smaller databases to deal with. Splitting your mailboxes across multiple stores will help minimise the time required before you can get some users online again in the case of
    a total failure. Also, if you split your mailboxes across 5 databases and then have a problem (for instance corruption) on one of them, then only around 1/5 of your users are effected rather than all of them.

  • Mailbox database has no mailboxes - Still has data in it

    On my exchange server, I have multiple databases set up for different types of users. In the default mailbox, there are no mailboxes according to get-mailbox -Database:"<default database name>" but if I check the database size with Get-MailboxDatabase
    -Status | Select ServerName,Name,DatabaseSize, I can see that there is 1.5GB of data in there. Where could this have come from?

    Hi,
    Did you create any mailboxes in this default database before?
    If you created mailboxes in this database and then deleted them, the database file size wouldn't reduce and these size would be white space.
    You can use the following command to check result.
    Get-MailboxDatabase -Identity "Mailbox Database" -Status | fl Name, DatabaseSize, AvailableNewMailboxSpace
    Best regards,
    Belinda Ma
    TechNet Community Support

  • Exchange 2010 - Create a new Mailbox Database

    Hello all and thanks in advance for your time and expertise.
    Here's my scenario:
    In my ORG we have one exchange server.  The hard drive space on this server was quite low so we added two more drives which are independent and in their own Raid Configuration from the drives that were already installed.  In other words, the current
    mailbox database is housed on drives with a total storage capacity of 837GB. 
    We recently added two more drives, each 2TB, and configured them in a RAID1. 
    I'm going to create a new Mailbox Database on the 2TB drives and move over some mailboxes to balance out the storage. 
    Question one:  When we move some of the mailboxes over to the new database - will this free up space on the existing database or do we have to reclaim it such as with an offline degrag.
    Question two:  When I create the new mailbox database and I'm prompted to Enter the new file locations for the database (database path and log folder path) - do I just change the paths to the new drive letter path such as G:
    We're eventually going to Office365 (hopefully sooner rather than later) but I just want to make sure I handle this process correctly. Your input here is greatly appreciated.

    Hello,
    Your databse size is 650 GB.  As per my experience , it would not take more than 14 hours for total mailbox movement.
    You will be creating new database of 2 TB , you have already allocated 2 Tb drive to exchange server.
    If you are dividing drive into 2 or four part and creating that much databse, it will be helpful for maintence activity in future.
    It is recommended that you move mailbox during off bussiness hours, it will fasten the movment,as there will be no load on exchange server . You can do it on daily basis Or you can do it on weekend .
    You need to take care of logs generated during movment, are you going to  use seperate log drive for databse, or combine with database drive. If you are moving all mailbox to one database, It will genrate same size of logs file as of total mailboxes
    size (650 GB). You neeed to handle it properly. Enable circular logging on database, after movment ,you can disable it.
    Moreover, if you will create move request of all mailboxes, exchange will process nly 50 request, rest will be in queue state.
    Regarding public folders, I understand there is no seperate disk for public folders, if you planning to delete old dtabse and free up disk space, you will have to move this public folders database to new disk also.
    Would recommend that you take advice  from other expert in this forum, before implementation.

  • Moving Arbitration Mailbox growing size, taking hours

    I am following the instructions in the deployment assistant to migrate an in-place Exchange 2010 setup to a new Exchange 2013 server.  I have reached the stage of migrating the arbitration mailbox from its original server to a database on the new one. 
    This process has now been running for 7 hours and as far as I can see the migrated mailbox size is larger than the database which used to house it.  The deployment assistant estimates this stage as requiring 10 minutes to complete.
    Is there a problem and if so what can I do to resolve the issue?

    Thanks for your response.
    I'm moving one arbitration mailbox.
    The first command shows that
    DisplayName                                    Status                   
    TargetDatabase
    Microsoft Exchange                             InProgress               
    Mailbox Database 0761821460
    The second one, run on all the existing mailbox databases shows historical moves but nothing about this one.
    I could be wrong about the database from which I'm moving the arbitration mailbox, but to the present time the details on the move show
    Data migrated:                        
    2.395 GB (2,571,811,149 bytes
    The task has been running for 11 hours.
    This is of concern for a task which is described as taking 10 minutes to complete.  Obviously if this is normal  and the deployment assistant is wrong in it's time estimate then I'll just let it run through.
    Thanks again

Maybe you are looking for