Question : exchange 2003 edb size

We have and Exchange 2003 server on a Windows 2003 Member Server machine. We have placed some major storage limits on our emails servers. When I did an 'Export List' on System Manager in exchange to get a text delimeted output of for all the mailboxes and their sizes, it total about 11gb. But the .edb file showed about 38Gb. Why is there such a huge discrepancy.


Thanks,

Sylvan

Answer : exchange 2003 edb size

Exchange automatically expands the database files beyond what is necessary, filling them with what is known as "white space". This additional space contains no data - Exchange just reserves it on disk. This reservation means mail can be written much quicker - and easier - to the database should there be a sudden influx of mail Exchange has to cope with. Deletion of data from the database causes Exchange to mark the space on disk white space.

It is perfectly normal to see this, and if your server is used heavily, you should just let Exchange use the space up as it will fill that before expanding the database.

The space can be reclaimed by performing an offline defrag of the database, but this isn't a routine procedure and you should really think about whether you need that space for other uses, considering Exchange will use it up in its own time anyway. Offline defrag can be run using eseutil on a store which you have already dismounted in System Manager. It's path is X:\program files\exchsrvr\bin\eseutil /d [EDB path]