SBS 2003 Exchange DB Offline Defrag

SBS 2003 has been around for a few years now. I'm sure some of you admins have some pretty large email boxes. You should have archiving enabled to loop to a safe place on the server, if you didn't purchase an archive solution.

If any of you set up some kind of journal account, you also know this account can fill up quick with mail. We export this box each year, then recreate it fresh. After the recreation, we do a dismount of the exchange database and a full offline defragmentation with a backup of the database before defragmentation.

Here is the screenshot of the defrag command using the ESEUTIL command and the completion of the defrag after it's done. Good old DOS Progress Bar.

Link to Microsft KB explaining the defrag process in their words.

Depending on how big that journal account is, you should see some space gain in the database. Don't forget to do your reg fix to extend the DB over 18GB. Mail will just stop when it hits over that limit. It should start up after the fix. Start Task Manager/Performance Tab and check the memory climb during defrag. If your .edb file is not healthy you could get an error during defrag, which are too numerous to list here. I got the 2102 error once. The defrag hung at 10% and errored out. It was 1 GB over physical memory when it errored out. I just shut down some unneeded services and the memory climb stayed under physical memory (4GB) the next try and the defrag completed.

Here is the link from Microsoft explaining the 18GB limit fix. Its quick and easy. Dismount the store before the defrag, then remount the store and restart the Microsoft Exchange Information Store in services after the fix and your back in business.