How to Create a New Mailbox Database

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Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 will reach end of support on April 11, 2017. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.

 

Applies to: Exchange Server 2007, Exchange Server 2007 SP1, Exchange Server 2007 SP2, Exchange Server 2007 SP3

This topic explains how to use the Exchange Management Console or the Exchange Management Shell to create a new mailbox database. A mailbox database manages the data in mailboxes, tracks deleted messages and mailbox sizes, and assists in message transfers. A mailbox database is stored as an Exchange database (.edb) file.

Before You Begin

To perform the following procedures, the account you use must be delegated the following:

  • Exchange Server Administrator role and local Administrators group for the target server

For more information about permissions, delegating roles, and the rights that are required to administer Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, see Permission Considerations.

Also, before you perform these procedures, be aware of the following:

  • Only one database can be added to a storage group on which local continuous replication (LCR) is enabled. For more information, see Local Continuous Replication.

  • For reliability, and in some cases for performance reasons, the database should be placed on disks that do not contain transaction logs.

  • Page zeroing is a process that is performed at the end of a streaming backup in which the data within the database is overwritten with characters that you have selected for that purpose. This makes the data unrecoverable by conventional means. As a best practice, if you want to enable page zeroing on a database, you should do so when you create the database. If you do not configure page zeroing when you create the database, the first time page zeroing is run against the database, it will significantly impact server performance. For more information, see Online Maintenance Database Scanning in Exchange 2007 SP1 and SP2.

Procedure

To use the Exchange Management Console to create a new mailbox database

  1. Start the Exchange Management Console.

  2. In the console tree, expand Server Configuration, and then click Mailbox.

  3. In the work pane, select the storage group in which you want the new mailbox database to be created.

  4. In the action pane, click New Mailbox Database. The New Mailbox Database wizard appears.

  5. On the New Mailbox Database page, complete the following fields:

    • Mailbox database name   Use this box to type the name of the new mailbox database. The name can be up to 64 characters in length and cannot use the following characters: \ / " = , ;

    • Database file path   This box shows where the new mailbox database will be created. To change the location of the Exchange database (.edb) file for the new mailbox database, click Browse, and then select a new location.

    • Mount this database   Select this check box to mount the mailbox database immediately after it is created. Mounting a database puts it online, thereby making its data available to users.

    • Local continuous replication database file path   This box appears only if local continuous replication is enabled for the storage group in which the mailbox database will be created. This box displays the location of the backup copy of the Exchange database (.edb) file. Click Browse to select a new location for the backup database file. For information about enabling local continuous replication for a storage group, see Managing Local Continuous Replication.

  6. Click New to create the mailbox database.

  7. On the Completion page, confirm whether the new mailbox database was created successfully. A status of Completed indicates that the wizard completed the task successfully. A status of Failed indicates that the task was not completed. If the task fails, review the summary for an explanation, and then click Back to make any configuration changes.

  8. Click Finish to complete the New Mailbox Database wizard. The new mailbox database appears under its storage group in the work pane of the Exchange Management Console.

To use the Exchange Management Shell to create a new mailbox database

  1. Run the following command.

    New-MailboxDatabase -Name <Database_Name> -StorageGroup <Server_Name>\<StorageGroup_Name>

  2. To mount the new database, run the following command.

    Mount-Database -Identity <Database_Name>

For detailed syntax and parameter information, see the New-MailboxDatabase reference topic.

For More Information

To learn more about mailbox databases, see Understanding the Exchange 2007 Store.

For more information about managing databases, see Managing Storage Groups and Databases.