Main Article    Ask the Experts, June 2006

How much disk space do you need to reserve for Exchange Server transaction logs?

The required disk space depends on how many logs per day (or week or month) the workload on your server generates. Exchange transaction logs have a fixed size (5MB), so you can easily estimate how many logs will fit into a given amount of space. Simply divide the space by 5,242,880 (1024 x 1024 x 5, or exactly 5MB). Because online and Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) backups truncate the log files, you probably don't need a huge amount of space available. You need enough space to allow for log accumulation between backups, plus a reasonable reserve. Most servers will generate no more than a few hundred log files per day. You can easily see how many are generated on a typical day by performing a full or incremental backup waiting for a day, then counting the number of generated logs.

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Reader Comments

This article is misleading. I subscribed to the magazine hoping that this article would help me size a new Exchange disk configuration. Instead, it provides a one paragraph answer to a question that isn't really related! Very frustrating.

cfairbairn- October 19, 2006

Article Rating 1 out of 5

I'm not sure what kind of answer you were expecting; the amount of space you reserve for transaction logs will always be directly proportional to how many logs you generate per time interval. Sorry you didn't find it helpful.

paulrobichaux- October 20, 2006

Article Rating 5 out of 5