During the lifespan of an Exchange server a database can become very, very large in the size it takes on the disk, much larger than the space used by the mailboxes that reside in the database. This is because whilst mailbox sizes will expand and shrink according to their data usage, the Exchange database only expands. Any space freed up by deletes in mailboxes or even the removal of a mailbox all together become whitespace in the database file. In the worst case you could have 40 GB of mailboxes...
IMPORTANT UPDATE There was a sudden last-minutes issue with the transportation / flights configuration that prevented me from making it to Cairo. I’ll be unfortunately missing out this event. M. Smay my friend will be a great backup with all the additional details he has to provide about his session content as well as an open session for the convenience of all of you. Sorry for missing out. I had to. I’m working with dotNETwork to re-organize my session as part of June 2009 gathering, but this is...