Outlook and Serer

scheming_gypsy

files in the MDBDATA folder are the transaction logs for Exchange. If you ever need to restore your Exchange server then you'll need these file. You won't 'need' them in the current location on a daily basis so you could create a scheduled task to move them somewhere else if you can't find where to relocate them.

I can't say why they only go back to November though

log files are constantly being created on a file server which is why its best to move them to a different drive / partition where possible.

S0litaire

Think the "logs" start from when the server was last rebooted or backed up.

I remember that most exchange backup programs have an option to "clear logs" when they backup.

Best thing to do is make sure "Exchange" stores it's log files on the "Z:" drive. It should be rather simple. (i've not used exchange in about 3 years!!!)

Basically:
If you Backup the Exchange server nightly, then the logs will not be an issue

Notlob

Thanks Scheming Gypsy and Solitaire.

I have already moved the log files to the Z drive.

I assume if I do need to restore my exchange, it would use the most recent transaction log file. As such, I could safely remove the older ones. Am I correct?

Notlob

scheming_gypsy

you could but as always, back them up before you remove them 'just in case'

AntiLochus

Notlob wrote: »

Thanks Scheming Gypsy and Solitaire.

I have already moved the log files to the Z drive.

I assume if I do need to restore my exchange, it would use the most recent transaction log file. As such, I could safely remove the older ones. Am I correct?

Notlob

Log files are created whenever there is a transaction on the Exchange database - in reality this means whenever you receive/delete/read/move/etc an email the change is written to the log file before being written to the database.

The changes in the log are written to the database fairly quickly and the log files will remain in the log directory until you either delete/move them or perform an incremental or full backup.

You will need the log files if you need to restore the Exchange database - especially important if you need to restore to a particular point-in-time (i.e. if you need to prove your company sent an email 6 months ago).

If your Exchange database fails today and you only performed a full backup last night, you need all the transaction log files since the last full backup - otherwise you will lose all the changes in the database since the last backup (in effect losing all emails received since the last backup). It is recommended to backup your Exchange database every day for this eventuality, either a full backup (the Exchange database files plus the log files) or an incremental backup (just the log files). As mentioned, both methods delete the logs after the backup keeping your system healthy and reducing the risk of disk space issues.

Hope this helps you out a bit

Notlob

AntiLochus wrote: »

Log files are created whenever there is a transaction on the Exchange database - in reality this means whenever you receive/delete/read/move/etc an email the change is written to the log file before being written to the database.

The changes in the log are written to the database fairly quickly and the log files will remain in the log directory until you either delete/move them or perform an incremental or full backup.

You will need the log files if you need to restore the Exchange database - especially important if you need to restore to a particular point-in-time (i.e. if you need to prove your company sent an email 6 months ago).

If your Exchange database fails today and you only performed a full backup last night, you need all the transaction log files since the last full backup - otherwise you will lose all the changes in the database since the last backup (in effect losing all emails received since the last backup). It is recommended to backup your Exchange database every day for this eventuality, either a full backup (the Exchange database files plus the log files) or an incremental backup (just the log files). As mentioned, both methods delete the logs after the backup keeping your system healthy and reducing the risk of disk space issues.

Hope this helps you out a bit

It does.

The server did in fact do nightly backups but stopped this auto process due to the common need to restart the server in the morning as, for unknown reasons, our primary software would sometimes not connect to the data on the server. Once I stopped the scheduled backup the problem went away!

Another issue for me to sort.

Regards,

Notlob