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Small EDB & Large STM file - 13.Oct.2004 2:18:00 AM

hellwolf

Posts: 5
Joined: 22.Sep.2004
From: Sydney
Status: offline

Hi all,
Here is the situation:
We have a Windows 2003 Exchange 2003 Enterprise server (serverA) which used to host around 50 mailboxes, those mailboxes have now been moved to another Windows 2003 Exchange 2003 Enterprise server (serverB) and serverA has now been made a front end server and only has the system mailboxes.

Two questions:
(1) I've read that you don't need to have mounted mailbox store or public store on a front end server. Is this correct?

(2) The EDB file on serverA used to be around 300MB and the STM file was 16GB, we performed an offline defrag and the EDB is now around 190MB and the STM 15.5GB. Can anyone explain how the STM file can be so large if the system mailboxes are only a total of 350KB according to the Exchange System Manager. Due to the company recently purchasing several other companies we have 5 seperate Exchange organisations, only one of which is Exchange 2003, the others are still Exchange 5.5. ServerA acts as a bridgehead and hosts about 10 SMTP connectors, could this have anything to do with the size of the EDB and STM files? Is there anything I can do to get the size of this STM file down? We will be rolling out Exchange 2003 Standard to a couple of small sites and I'm worried that we will go over the 16GB limit very quickly in those sites if this behaviour is normal.

Post #: 1

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RE: Small EDB & Large STM file - 2.Nov.2004 4:49:00 PM

pjhutch

Posts: 3055
Joined: 21.Jul.2001
From: W Yorks, England
Status: offline

a) Correct

b) The STM file probably contains attachments, and if you use a lot of attachments it can be quite big. You need to check mailbox sizes in Exchange manager to see where they are.

(in reply to hellwolf)

Post #: 2

RE: Small EDB & Large STM file - 2.Nov.2004 11:52:00 PM

MSRyman

Posts: 63
Joined: 31.Oct.2004
From: Dallas Tx
Status: offline

This is really an indication of what kind of traffic your users mailboxes see most. Whether it be mostly internal or xternal mail. Here;s why

IN Exch 5.5 We used to have to convert every message recieved from the internet to a user as it came in and it could cause some Info Store hangs or crashes. so..
In Exch 2K(3) we rarely have to convert the message type. Which leads to what you see in the sizes of your edb and stm.

We no longer convert unless message from internet is opened by a user and then modified somehow and saved. It will then pull the data from STM to EDB and leave pointer in STM.

You simply have more external mail delivery thaninternal mail. Always treat the edb and stm pretty much as 1 file and never let AV scan them

(in reply to hellwolf)