Re: Sudden massive increase in exchange backup size

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Thanks for this Allan,

You're right about the event log 1221. There is another entry as below:


The database "First Storage Group\Mailbox Store (SERVERNAME)" has 813
megabytes of free space after online defragmentation has terminated.


Can I defragment the mailbox store any other way?

As for the mailbox sizes, I've added them all up and then total less than
600Mb.

Thanks again,
Paul.




"Al Williams" <donotreplydirect@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:eu8YZtzVGHA.900@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
That 1221 event you quoted was for the public store (the pubXXX files)
which isn't your problem. There should be another one for the private
store.

As far as checking mailbox sizes go into the Server Management advanced
setion and find the exchange tree. Dig down until you see "Mailbox Store"
and then goto the Mailboxes item to see a summary of all your users. Or
you could check your server reports as I think they have this as well but
not to the detail shown here.

--
Allan Williams



"Paul Hadfield" <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%23rY5yixVGHA.4340@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Allan,

I've had a look at the 4 files you mentioned...

pub1.edb = 25,608 KB
pub1.stm = 4,104 KB
priv1.edb = 1,274,952 KB
priv1.stm = 493,576 KB

So the size of the backup does seem to reflect the size of these files
pretty much. If there is a huge attachment in someone's mailbox how can I
find it without actually opening each person's mail box?

I guess the database isn't fragmented as I did find the following 1221
event in the app log:

The database "First Storage Group\Public Folder Store
(SBS2003ServerName)" has 6 megabytes of free space after online
defragmentation has terminated.

Thanks for your input on this.
Paul.






"Al Williams" <donotreplydirect@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ODGhvpBVGHA.2492@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Check the database container files for their sizes - the PRIV1.EDB,
PRIV1.STM and PUB1.EDB, PUB1.STM files. If they have grown then you
have some big mail or attachments in there. Exchange does a early
morning internal "defrag" on these files (look for 1221 events in the
applog for details) so it is possible there is free space inside these
files. The only way to recover that is an offline defrag (don't do it
unless you have backups and are very careful).

As the SBS backup wizard backs up exchange twice (the stores are backed
up plus shadow copies of the database files are made) any increase in
exchange can have a big effect.

--
Allan Williams



"news.microsoft.com" <paul@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:eu0685xUGHA.1160@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
One of my clients running SBS2003 standard with just 8 users has
noticed that their full exchange nightly backup has suddenly jumped in
size from 600/650MB to around 1.8GB!!

I've been into the mail box store and added up all the sizes of all the
mail boxes and they total under 600MB. The public folders are rarely
used and total up less than a 2MB.

I've looked through the last few months of archived backups and the
size has always been under 650MB and steadily increasing - as one would
normally expect.

I can't for the life of me figure out why the sudden increase, which
happened in just one night!!

I'm using NT backup to perform the full backup nightly.

Any ideas?

Cheers,
Paul.










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