Exchange Defragmentation Required

This alert condition indicates that the Exchange Database requires defragmentation. The fragmentation of Exchange data occurs within the Exchange database itself, which is different than regular disk fragmentation. If you run regular disk defragmentation on an Exchange computer, you should do it during off-hours and preferably with Exchange databases stopped. Disk defragmentation is a very I/O intensive process. Therefore, an Exchange database engine could have difficulty accessing the hard drives in a timely manner. By default, Exchange databases run a defragmentation process daily. The defragmentation option makes used storage contiguous, eliminates unused storage, and compacts the database. This reduces the database’s size. Eseutil copies database records to a new database. When defragmentation is complete, the original database is deleted or saved to a user-specified location, and the new version is renamed as the original. If the utility encounters a bad record, the utility will stop and display an error message.

Last modified April 17, 2020