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Delete Default Mailbox Database in Exchange 2010

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After installing Mailbox Server Role in Exchange 2010, a default mailbox database is created in the Exchange server. Most of the time, Exchange administrators will prefer removing these default mailbox databases. To delete default mailbox database in Exchange 2010, first you have to make sure that the default database do not contain any of Arbitration, Discovery Search, Archive and user mailboxes. If the mailbox contains any of these, then you have to migrate them to a different mailbox database before you are able delete the default mailbox database.

Delete Default Mailbox Database in Exchange 2010

In our scenario, I have a default database called “Mailbox Database 1746187967” on the mailbox server MBG-MBX01.

Delete Default Mailbox Database in Exchange 2010

We can find out mailboxes that are residing in this default mailbox database by issuing the following command as shown in screenshot below.

Get-Mailbox -Database "Mailbox Database 1746187967"

Mailbox DB Output

There are three User mailboxes and one Discovery Search mailbox in this mailbox database. We should also check if the mailbox database contain any Arbitration mailbox by running  following command.



Get-Mailbox -Database "Mailbox Database 1746187967" -Arbitration

As per below output, there are three Arbitration Mailboxes in this default mailbox database.

Arbitration

Move Mailboxes to Different Mailbox Database

Before you can delete the database, you must move the mailboxes of that database to different database. Here, I will move all mailboxes to the new mailbox database DB01 on MBG-MBX01. You can also refer the article Create Mailbox Database in Exchange 2010 to learn more about creating a mailbox database. To move all mailboxes at once you can use the following PowerShell cmdlet.

Get-Mailbox -Database "Mailbox Database 1746187967"| New-MoveRequest -TargetDatabase DB01

This will move all User and Discovery Search Mailboxes at once.

For moving all Arbitration mailbox at once, you can use the following PS command.

Get-Mailbox -Database “Mailbox Database 1746187967” -Arbitration| New-MoveRequest -TargetDatabase DB01

This will move all Arbitration Mailboxes at once.

Move Arbitration

We have moved all user mailboxes, discovery search and arbitration mailboxes.  We did not move any archive mailbox since we did not had any archives in our default mailbox database.  Now lets delete the default mailbox database, this can be done through Exchange management console or Exchange management shell. To remove the default mailbox database,open Exchange Management Console â†’ expand Organization Configuration â†’ click on Mailbox â†’ Navigate to Database Management tab â†’ Right click on the mailbox database which you have to delete → click on Remove and click yes in the confirmation screen as shown below.

RemoveDatabase

This will delete the default mailbox database from the Exchange 2010. You can also remove the default mailbox database by typing the following command in the Exchange management shell.

Remove-MailboxDatabase -Identity "Mailbox Database 1746187967"

In this way you can safely remove default mailbox database from Exchange 2010 Server.




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Bipin

Bipin is a freelance Network and System Engineer with expertise on Cisco, Juniper, Microsoft, VMware, and other technologies. You can hire him on UpWork. Bipin enjoys writing articles and tutorials related to Network technologies. Some of his certifications are, MCSE:Messaging, JNCIP-SEC, JNCIS-ENT, and others.
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