That helps but I still have some questions. I'll try to be more clear. When I look in the Exchange System Manager at an account does or does that not give one at least a relatively true size for that persons mailstore size?
Bindview tells me they simply use the numbers provided by Exchange to get the report figures. This report gave me a mailstore number size equivalent to that I saw in the System Manager. (~3.4 meg this morning). All my confusion stems from the following. I run a report in Bindview and the query terms have the following definition: -Message Size: This field contains the size (in k) of the Message, including attachments -Attachment Total Size: This field lists the total size of all attachments (bytes) to the message -Total Mailbox Size: This field contains the total size of all messages (k). So I get: Message Size: 268356 k Attachment Total Size: 75998 k Total Mailbox size: 3341 k (this number matches what I see in System Manager) For another person I get Message Size: 429069 Attachment Total Size: 403223 k Total Mailbox size: 425915 k What are some reasons for mine having such a difference between message size and total mailbox size? The data for the second person matches the trend I see for all other users. What is the most reliable number? And which number does exchange use to determine what a person mailbox size is and whether they are near or over limit? And why am I asking all this? Our message store total is close to 6 gigs for a company of 20 people. So then I decide to use Bindview to get a better breakdown of the store. And it appears that as with many orgs we have a lot of pack rats with 80% (based on the bindview numbers) of their mailbox space consisting of attachments. I want to make sure that these at least some what reflect the real world numbers. Are there better tools to get a handle on the store? Jim Liddil > -----Original Message----- > From: Dupler, Craig [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 5:36 PM > To: Exchange Discussions > Subject: RE: Size of mailbox > > > Keep in mind that there is no such thing as a mailbox. So, > in a very real sense, it consumes little if any space. Ok, > what is it. > > The store or more accurately the two stores are two large > combined storage environments. One is used to manage > inherently private stuff (mailboxes) and the other is used to > manage largely public stuff (public folders). Thus the priv > and pub. You will often hear them referred to as "single > instance stores or storage." There are several important > ways to think about what is in them. > > Everything is only in there once. If there are two copies of > something, then the second copy is either not in one of the > stores, or there are multiple servers and something has been > replicated due to the requirements implied by the rights > (more on this below). > > A mailbox is a view of the contents of the two stores. A > mailbox view includes the entire hierarchy of the pub store > and only those items in the priv store that are assigned to > the security context and "mailbox" that matches the user's > current profile. One item mail may appear in every last view > of every last valid profile, or it may occur in only one. > That will depend on to whom it was sent, and how it was > dispositioned in a particular view. If someone deletes and > item, all that does is remove it from their view. It is not > actually purged until it is deleted from all currently valid > security contexts that have been linked into that store. > > As you can imagine, a fair number of cycles in the server are > spent on internal processes that maintain the integrity of > the store. There are sweeping and garbage collection activities. > > Obviously, the storage allocated to a mailbox view is at best > and on a good day, only a theoretical value. It looks at the > stored objects (including calendar items and journal entries) > that can be seen in in that view, and sums them. Obviously, > the sum of all views is many times greater than the total > physical size of the two stores on the typical server. But > it is a convenient way of looking at the contents, and > encouraging someone to delete stuff that they don't really > need. But equally obvious, if I send two people on the same > server as me a message and both of them delete it, but I keep > a copy in my "Sent Items" folder, nothing has been deleted > and the stores do not change size. All that changed was the > contents of the two recipient's views. > > Does that help? > > -----Original Message----- > From: James Liddil [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 2:04 PM > To: Exchange Discussions > Subject: Size of mailbox > > > If look at my the storage size for my mail box it shows about > 1,000,000 Bytes (~1000 KB.)Now just off hand this does not > look right. I then run report with Bindview for Exchange for > the attachment total and come up with ~74,000 KB which is > larger than my total storage size. If I look in Outlook I > see 240,000 KB for my folder size. Can someone help me make > sense of this? > > Jim Liddil > > _________________________________________________________________ > List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm > Archives: http://www.swynk.com/sitesearch/search.asp > To unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > _________________________________________________________________ > List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm > Archives: http://www.swynk.com/sitesearch/search.asp > To unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > _________________________________________________________________ List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm Archives: http://www.swynk.com/sitesearch/search.asp To unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
