# Solved: Windows Server 2003 exchange almost full



## Anthony5557 (Dec 17, 2008)

I would on the Pos systems for a restruant change. I do work on they computers in the office and maintain the networks at the resturants. This company has a server in their main office. They recently asked me to look at the problem and see what I think. The problem is I don't know what to think I virtually know nothing about severs outside of giving their employees access and email accounts on it. The server has three drives a c:/ , d:/ , and exchange m:/ drive. The exchange drive sent the office manager an email saying that is was almost out of space. I looked and it only has about 400mb left. What am I supposed to do about this. And what is the exchange drive. I think it is for their email but don't really know. All your help will be appreciated. I want to learn about this thing and understand how servers work. Thanks.


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## srhoades (May 15, 2003)

Exchange stores everyones mail, calendars, and contacts in one large monolithic database file. Public folders, if there are any, are stored in a separate database file. The exchange drive is just a stand alone hard drive or partition set aside to store these database files and the exchange log files. Once the available storage gets below a certain amount, the databases will dismount and users will not have access to their email. First thing I would do is to encourage users to delete what they absolutely don't need. Second, look into purging the old logs as they can take up quite a bit of space, see the following Microsoft article.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/240145

If that doesn't solve your problem, you can easily install another hard drive and just as easily tell exchange to move the databases to the new hard drive.


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## Rockn (Jul 29, 2001)

Or get some more storage, dismount the store, move it and bring it up on the additional storage.


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## Anthony5557 (Dec 17, 2008)

I would really like to go and delete the things in there that aren't needed. How do I know which things that I should delete and which things that need to be saved?


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## Rockn (Jul 29, 2001)

You cannot go in there and delete anything. It is up to the end user to delete or archive things they no longer need. Either that or you can implement some retention policies that will run on a monthly basis and delete any emails odler than your set retention policy.


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## Anthony5557 (Dec 17, 2008)

So I have to tell 57 people to go and delete things from there emails. The drive size is 20gb, I don't think that can be all email can it?


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## Rockn (Jul 29, 2001)

It is everything that they use in Exchange, calendars, contacts, notes, tasks. The majorrity of it will be email and with 57 people with no mailbox restrictions or policies set could easily exceed the Exchange limitations for mail stores. You should really move the logs adn databases off of the C drive and onto some other attached storage.


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## Anthony5557 (Dec 17, 2008)

It isn't on the C drive. It's on the M drive. The C drive and the D drive have plenty of space. It's the Exchange drive letter M that is so full.


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## Rockn (Jul 29, 2001)

M isn't a real drive unless they did an upgrade from a previous version of Exchange to 2003. I believe M is a virtual drive that is just a share on one of your physical drives. Look in Administrative Tools > Computer Management and look under Disk Manager to see if M is a real physical drive.

Regardless if you do not upgrade the storage you will run into the same issue again and again.


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## Anthony5557 (Dec 17, 2008)

so just order an new hard drive probably a 500gb and install? If I do that how do I make the server send all the other stuff to the other drive?


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## Rockn (Jul 29, 2001)

Pretty simple really. Get the new drive installed and formatted and then follow these instructions:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/821915


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## Anthony5557 (Dec 17, 2008)

which one do I move the log files or database? Probably just the files right?


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## Rockn (Jul 29, 2001)

Move both of them to the new drive. Back up everything before you do anything. You never answered the question as to whether or not that M drive was actually a mapped drive or a physical drive. What size is your Exchange database at now? There may be a way to fix it without having to do anything too drastic.


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## AQ78 (Mar 30, 2010)

please bare in mind that out of the box exhchange 2003 standard is limited to 16gb mailstore also


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## Anthony5557 (Dec 17, 2008)

I will be looking at the server tomorrow. I will check to see if it is a mapped drive or not. I do believe it is 16gb that is almost full on the m drive.


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## AQ78 (Mar 30, 2010)

Anthony5557 said:


> I will be looking at the server tomorrow. I will check to see if it is a mapped drive or not. I do believe it is 16gb that is almost full on the m drive.


no problems, if you need to increase the database size this is how

Increase exchange 2003 store limits

http://www.techieshelp.com/set-exchange-database-limits/


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## Anthony5557 (Dec 17, 2008)

Ok so I just looked at the disk management and the M drive is a virtual drive. Its a partition of on of the hard drives. There are two hard drives in this machine. I tried to go to the m drive and right click and go to properties and go to quotas and check do no limit the disk space but that didn't work. It says that there is only 368mb left in the drive. I think I need to do something soon. What is my first step?


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## Rockn (Jul 29, 2001)

You are absolutely positive this is Exchange 2003? I thought they did away with the M drive in Exchange 2000.

If it is indeed Exchange 2003 I would make sure that it is patched to SP2 and then you should be good to go or at least can make a registry change to allow the database to grow.

Run the script on this site to see what your stores are at.

http://www.petri.co.il/reporting_storage_size_in_exchange.htm


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## Anthony5557 (Dec 17, 2008)

I think I have found some of the problem. The server is backing up to a travan 40gb tape drive. The drive is spitting out the tape after about 30 seconds. The folder in the exchange drive that is full is the mdbdata folder. I did some research and this folder hold the log file that the system uses to back up. So this folder is full because the server hasn't backed up an a long time. I don't know if the drive is bad or the tapes are bad. I have two tapes neither work. What should I do to fix this problem?


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