Question : Exchange Database Size Limit Reached

My company is running Exchange 2003 standard.

About a year ago I saw a warning that we had reach our database size limit to I followed the instructions in this article ( http://tr.im/je9K ) to increase the limit to 75GB, the maximum for Exchange 2003 standard. The warning came back over the weekend, stating we had reached the 75GB limit.

I have no problem setting up policies to purge old messages but when I look at the mailboxes in the storage group (System Manager > Server > Storage Group > Mailbox Store > Mailboxes) and do a rough sum of all of them (can't figure out how to export) it doesn't add up to 75GB, not even close.

We are using GFI Mail Archiver, could this have anything to do with it? When setting up GFI I tested some things with journaling, etc, any change I could have left something turned on during this time?

What else comprises this 75GB total?

If there isn't something wrong and I do have to start purging old messages, any suggestions on doing it only for some users? (I don't want to do it for any high up, just sales people and clerical staff basically) For instance, everyone except members of a certain OU or group?

Answer : Exchange Database Size Limit Reached

Adding up the list of mailboxes will never equal the size of the store. There are various reasons for that, the main one being that ESM doesn't show you everything.

"When you view the space that a mailbox uses in Exchange System Manager, the amount only includes the space that is used by the Priv.edb file. The amount does not include the space that the Priv.stm file uses. "

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/828070/

Due to the way that the database size limit is imposed, an offline defrag is a waste of time. The limit is imposed by taking the physical size minus the amount of white space. You can see the amount of white space in event ID 1221.
As such, doing an offline defrag doesn't gain you anything because you are gaining space that is already available to you.

However if you have been deleting data then it may well be stored in deleted item retention. You would need to reduce the DIR time to release that space quicker.

Simon.