Often people ask whether or not they need to do any
maintenance on their Exchange Databases. Exchange 5.5 performs Online
Maintenance, which takes care of most things, however, there may be some
things you need done that isn't looked after by the Online Maintenance.
One of the things Online Maintenance does, is moves all the
white space to the back of the databases (into the writable area). If you have
information and users that change a lot, then this helps keep your database
size regulated. However it won't make the actual size any smaller.
If your having trouble backing up Exchange, because your
running out of room, then you may want to consider compacting the database.
This is an Offline task, which basically means, you have to
shut down Exchange services, so if you plan on doing this, make sure you plan
your downtime correctly. On this note, I wouldn't recommend performing this
too often, once a year is adequate, or if when you have a period where you may
have deleted lots of information and users.
To do this, follow these steps.
-
Stop the Information Store and Directory Service.
-
From a command prompt, type the following - eseutil /d
<path to database>\pri.edb /bpri.bak. Make sure you have enough
room for a backup of the database before proceeding. (Like always, backup,
backup, backup, before performing ANY changes in your databases)
-
Click OK to compact the PRI.EDB.
Follow the same process for the PUB.EDB and the DIR.EDB. When
finished, restart the Information Store and Directory Store Services, and make
sure users can log on. When satisfied, delete the *.BAK files.
This process works quite well. I've seen an 8GB PRI.EDB which
compact to 800MB! This case was a little extreme, however not really that
unusual. Make a note on your before and after, and you can have a big sigh of
relief when your backups no longer run until 10am the next day!
