Finding free space in Exchange Server 2003 Databases

Finding out how much free space (white space) an Exchange database has is something I regularly do. I want to show you two ways you can get this information.

First of, you can use ESEUTIL /MS <database name> to dump the free space information, but this requires that the database is dismounted. That is not always practical, since users may want to read some email while you check for free space.

The second way is to view the Application log of the Exchange server. When Exchange finishes online defragmentation, which is scheduled to run each night by default, it logs an event with ID 1221 in the Application log. The source can either be MSExchangeIS Mailbox Store or MSExchangeIS Public Store, dependig on whether the store is a mailbox or a public folder store. A typical 1221 event looks like this:

Type:         Information
Event:        1221
Date Time:    11.07.2006 06:00:00
Source:       MSExchangeIS Mailbox Store
ComputerName: SERVER1
Category:     General
User:         N/A
Description:  The database “Storage Group Astore1” has 659 megabytes of free space after online defragmentation has terminated.

Another neat trick is to use the eventquery.vbs tool to dump all the recent 1221 events so you can easily see all your databases. A sample commmand to dumpt the events from the last 24 hrs would be:

cscript c:windowssystem32eventquery.vbs /L Application /V /FI “ID eq 1221” /FI “DATETIME eq 07/11/06,01:00:01AM-07/11/06,11:59:59PM” /FO LIST

Outlook tip

Just discovered a new hotkey in Outlook that I previously did not know about. When typing names in the To field you are often presented with the drop down list of previously resolved addresses from the Outlook local cache. This cache is stored in a file usually called outlook.nk2 in you userprofile directory tree. But if you have not previously used the address and want Outlook to try to resolve it you can press CTRL+K. This is the same as pressing the Check Names button on the toolbar.