Mail Enable Backup Questions (Large Backups)

[jeremyl]

# BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Currently I have Mail Enable installed to:-

C:\Program Files (x86)\Mail Enable = 18.8GB Total Size

I have also a Backup folder for Mail Enable:-

C:\Backups\BACKUP\Sets\Autoback = 110GB Total Size

However most of the space is:-

- C:\Backups\BACKUP\Sets\Autoback\Store\Postoffices\domain.com\INDEXROOT = 77GB Total Size
- C:\Backups\BACKUP\Sets\Autoback\Store\Postoffices\domain2.com\INDEXROOT = 11GB Total Size

When compared to actual directly its backing up it's a lot smaller

- C:\Program Files (x86)\Mail Enable\Postoffices\domain.com\INDEXROOT = 183MB Total Size
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Mail Enable\Postoffices\domain2.com\INDEXROOT = 117MB Total Size

We currently use the default task scheduler job "mebackup /BACKUP"

I have done a few upgrades over the past 1.5 years of using the service.

Mail Enable Standard to Mail Enable Professional
Mail Enable Pro v10.37 to v10.39
Mail Enable Pro v10.40 to v10.43

Due to the backup now consuming nearly 10 times the size of the actual Mail Enable data I am investigating this matter so my server doesn't run out of space.

My original thought was since it's a single backup shouldn't consume much more than the Mail Enable directory.

I also expected that the "INDEXROOT" backup for a user inside ``C:\Backups" would be a similar in size to the one located in C:\Program Files (x86)\Mail Enable" but as you can see there is a huge difference.

C:\Backups\BACKUP\Sets\Autoback\Store\Postoffices\domain.com\INDEXROOT\user1 = 38.4GB (Approx 4,900 files)
C:\Program Files (x86)\Mail Enable\Postoffices\domain.com\INDEXROOT\user1 = 83MB (Only Approx 10 files - Huge difference to 38.4GB in the backup)

A possibly explanation is that possibly user1 has deleted some emails but it still doesn't explain why the INDEXROOT is 83MB compared to the backup of 38.4GB.

C:\Backups\BACKUP\Sets\Autoback\Store\Postoffices\domain.com\MAILROOT\user1 = 6.50GB
C:\Program Files (x86)\Mail Enable\Postoffices\domain.com\MAILROOT\user 1 = 2.67GB

# Questions

Q1. Is `INDEXROOT` data only used to allow for indexing & searching emails faster via the MailEnable website portal?

Q2. Why is INDEXROOT differ so much in size between one in the BACKUP & the one located in Program Files?

Q3. Is the automated daily backup (mebackup /Backup) a incremental or does it wipe/create a fresh backup every day?
(Currently I think it's incremental as it has old emails that were previously deleted by the staff member)

Q4. Is it OK to delete the "INDEXROOT" folder inside " C:\Backups\BACKUP\Sets\Autoback\Store\Postoffices\domain.com\INDEXROOT" OR will this break the backups?

(As the INDEXROOT consumes about 77GB + 11.5GB in the other directory)

Q5. What triggers new data to be added to "INDEXROOT" + is it possible to trigger it to re-index?

[Admin]

The back only makes a copy of the data. So the problem will be that the indexing, since it changes the names of the index files, is keeping older indexes. You can delete this, since it can be rebuilt. i.e. if the indexroot is cleared then the emails for the mailbox will be reindexed. You may just want to include the data directories in an incremental backup, or just purge the indexroot backup before doing the backup process.