How to Deal with Exchange White Space

Question:

I am looking to provide some free space and white space numbers to mgmt for capacity planning. Currently running 2003sp2 in 6/2 cluster. Can you recommend some scripts or free apps that you use? Currently we have mom and i have been getting some data but have to manually enter into spreadsheets for trending etc.

Since you have cluster you do have enterprise version of Exchange 2003. I won't recommend taking the exchange database offline for defragmentation to gain white space and I would not even bother to do that. Simple reason is that no need for it.

You can simply create new mail store and move users onto this new mail store. It would be better to create two new databases if you can and move users evenly cross these two databases and simply delete the old one when there is no mailbox left onto it

Here are the rules.

1. There is no need for offline defrag if you are running exchange enterprise version
2. Simply create new databases and use "Move mailbox wizard" to move the mailboxes
3. Delete the original database when there is no mailbox on it
4. Move users in the night, you can schedule mailbox move, don't forget exchange uses 4 treats one at the time, meaning if you schedule 20 user to be moved exchange will start dealing with 4 mailbox first one at the time as soon as one is done, the next one in the list will be moved.
5. The smaller the exchange database the happier the exchange will be. This is true for most of the databases exchange will like to deal with smaller databases, so be on top of the game and don't let the databases grow too much.
6. Communicate with your users and make sure the users are aware of the move and they won't be able to use the mailboxes during move (exchange will lock the mailbox)
7. Doing things in smart way will avoid mistakes so the white space is calculated event id 1221 on the application log of your exchange server, if you really curious about it calculate the white space simply adding all 1221 estimated usable space.
8. I have this mailbox count script will dump all your mailboxes their size and etc onto nice excel spreadsheet so this will give you nice map and help you plan your mailbox move (http://smtp25.blogspot.com/2007/08/mail-box-count-script_4766.html)
9. Seriously look into moving into exchange 2007, there is huge difference 64 BIT servers with right memory and CPU and correct RAID for the OS and Exchange will make huge difference. I start migrating some of our client's results are fantastic.
10. Move AD into AD 2008 if it is possible this will speed things a lot from my experience
11. MOM will keep an eye on your exchange server and let you know ahead of time most of the issues
--Oz Ozugurlu
MVP (Exchange) MCITP (EMA),
MCITP (SA) MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST, Security+, Project +, Server +

Blog: http://www.smtp25.blogspot.com