I need to delete some user mailboxes from exchange 2013 database to release the storage. Each of those mailbox has 40-50G of data. Those mail boxes have been exported as backups. There is a retention period of 14 days by default that all deleted items will still be hold in database. The situation is that I need space right now and I want to bypass this retention period and have those mailboxes removed from the hard drive imminently.
Is there a way to do this? I could not find the solution online….
Note: They are disconnected mailboxes, User accounts will still be in AD.
Best Answer
Offline defrags? Is it 2005?
Create a new database and move the mailboxes. Zero risk, zero downtime - unlike an offline defrag.
If you really don't have the space, then another option would be to stand up a temporary Exchange server, move those mailboxes you want to delete to that temporary server and delete them from there. That should give the white space back to the database much quicker than anything else.
Finally, there is another technique to remove those mailboxes using remove-storemailbox. It is outlined in this blog posting:
http://blog.enowsoftware.com/solutions-engine/bid/131820/Moving-Exchange-2010-Mailboxes-to-Create-White-Space