Applies to: Exchange Server 2013

Topic Last Modified: 2013-01-21

You can use the Shell to create a recovery database, a special kind of mailbox database that's used to mount and extract data from the restored database as part of a recovery operation. After you create a recovery database, you can move a recovered or restored mailbox database into the recovery database, and then use the New-MailboxRestoreRequest cmdlet to extract data from the recovered database. After extraction, the data can then be exported to a folder or merged into an existing mailbox. Using recovery databases, you can recover data from a backup or copy of a database without disrupting user access to current data.

Looking for other management tasks related to recovery databases? Check out Recovery Databases.

What do you need to know before you begin?

  • Estimated time to complete this task: 1 minute

  • You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure or procedures. To see what permissions you need, see the "Mailbox recovery" entry in the Recipients Permissions topic.

  • For information about keyboard shortcuts that may apply to the procedures in this topic, see Keyboard Shortcuts in the Exchange Admin Center.

Tip:
Having problems? Ask for help in the Exchange forums. Visit the forums at: Exchange Server, Exchange Online, or Exchange Online Protection.

Use the Shell to create a recovery database

This example creates the recovery database RDB1 on the Mailbox server MBX2.

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New-MailboxDatabase -Recovery -Name RDB1 -Server MBX2

This example creates the recovery database RDB2 on the Mailbox server MBX1 using a custom path for the database file and log folder.

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New-MailboxDatabase -Recovery -Name RDB2 -Server MBX1 -EdbFilePath "C:\Recovery\RDB2\RDB2.EDB" -LogFolderPath "C:\Recovery\RDB2"

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

How do you know this worked?

To verify that you've successfully created a recovery database, do the following:

  • In the Shell, run the following command to display configuration information for the recovery database.

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    Get-MailboxDatabase <RecoveryDatabaseName> | Format-List


Other Tasks

After you create a recovery database, you may also want to restore data using a recovery database. For detailed steps, see Restore Data Using a Recovery Database.