As others have stated, under normal circumstances there should be no need for an offline defrag.
Offline defrags really only help to remove white space from the directory (DIT) file. Under normal circumstances, the removal of objects from the directory will cause white space. However, as new objects are created, generally they will be written into this white space previously consumed. Therefore running an offline defrag in most cases will have little affect. If your organization has recently removed a large number of objects, such as with a divesture, or has recently upgrade to Windows 2003 I would not recommend an offline defrag. Depending on the state of your 6GB DB and the disk subsystem, the defrag process could take some time to run. Most IT groups will not allow for such down time given the minimal benefit. However, if you run the show...... BTW - 6GB is a decent size DB. How many users and computers in the AD? How much memory in your DCs? Is the ADC in use? In a previous note Al mentioned that it seems that there is a query or application that might be the culprit. I would invest my time there before going down the road of an offline defrag. Regards, Aric -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Carr, Jonathan (OFT) Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2004 12:37 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Is there a way to automate offline defrag on the AD I would like to setup a schedule for all the 100+ dc's to defrag offline 2 to 4 times a year -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mulnick, Al Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2004 10:34 AM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Is there a way to automate offline defrag on the AD I'd be curious why you are wanting to defrag the dit automatically. Can we assume that you want to schedule it for the wee hours of the night and hence that's why you want to do this automatically/scripted? If so, it might not be a bad idea to do this during the day when you can watch it. Only do it to one dc at a time of course and the clients (not Exchange) shouldn't notice. A DC going off-line is a normal occurrence in AD and is planned for by AD aware clients in most cases. Once done with the first one, go to the next and so forth until done. FWIW, it sounds like a bad query or application that's going after the DC's. Especially if it's happening daily at about the same time. Al -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert Rutherford Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2004 9:56 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Is there a way to automate offline defrag on the AD Just curious... How many other DC's do you have? Are you saying the other DC's aren't having the same issue? Just curious why MS would recommend you defrag the AD. BR Rob -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Carr, Jonathan (OFT) Sent: 15 September 2004 14:48 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Is there a way to automate offline defrag on the AD We are troubleshoot an issue with MS and they suggested we do this. It appears that at a certain time during the day (give or take 30 min.) our core DC's (4 servers) go nuts. These servers are not the core bridgeheads. LSASS uses every piece of memory it can get for about 2 hrs. The dc runs out of memory and LSASS starts paging memory. Then it goes away. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tony Murray Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2004 8:47 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [ActiveDir] Is there a way to automate offline defrag on the AD I'd be interested to know why you might want to do this. I would expect an offline defrag to be required only in exceptional circumstances, e.g. to reclaim space following a demerger in which many objects have . It's not something you need to perform regularly as the NTDS.DIT is maintained automatically using built-in utilities anyway. Tony ---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- From: "Carr, Jonathan \(OFT\)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 08:06:30 -0400 Is there a way to automate offline defrag on the AD. It is a real pain to do the MS article way of defragging the NTDS.DIT. Does anybody know of a batch, vbs or utility that does offline defrag of the AD ????? ________________________________________________________________ Sent via the WebMail system at mail.activedir.org List info : http://www.activedir.org/mail_list.htm List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/list_faq.htm List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ List info : http://www.activedir.org/mail_list.htm List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/list_faq.htm List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ ======================================================================= Scanned for virus infection by Messagelabs ======================================================================= List info : http://www.activedir.org/mail_list.htm List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/list_faq.htm List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ List info : http://www.activedir.org/mail_list.htm List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/list_faq.htm List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ List info : http://www.activedir.org/mail_list.htm List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/list_faq.htm List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ List info : http://www.activedir.org/mail_list.htm List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/list_faq.htm List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/
