Applies to: Exchange Server 2010 SP3, Exchange Server 2010 SP2

Topic Last Modified: 2011-03-19

You can create a mailbox database, which is a unit of granularity where mailboxes are created and stored. A mailbox database is stored as an Exchange database (.edb) file.

Looking for other management tasks related to mailbox databases? Check out Managing Mailbox Databases.

Prerequisites

Sufficient disk space exists to create the database. For more information, see Mailbox Server Storage Design.

What Do You Want to Do?

Use the EMC to create a mailbox database

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

  1. In the console tree, navigate to Organization Configuration > Mailbox.

  2. In the action pane, click New Mailbox Database. The New Mailbox Database wizard appears.

  3. On the Introduction page, complete the following fields:

    • Mailbox database name   Use this box to type a name for the new mailbox database. The name can contain up to 64 characters but can't include the following characters: \ / " = , ;.

    • Browse   Click this button to locate the server on which to create the database. Select the server, and then click OK.

  4. On the Set Paths page, complete the following fields:

    • Database file path   This box displays the default path to the database file. You can change the location by typing a new path.

    • Log folder path   This box displays the default path to the log folder. You can change the location by typing a new path.

    • Mount this database   Select this check box if you want to mount this database. Mounting a database puts it online, making its data available to users.

  5. On the New Mailbox Database page, click New to create the mailbox database.

  6. On the Completion page, confirm whether the new mailbox database was created successfully. A status of Completed indicates that the wizard completed the task successfully. A status of Failed indicates that the task wasn't completed. If the task fails, review the summary for an explanation, and then click Back to make any configuration changes.

  7. Click Finish to complete the wizard. The new mailbox database appears on the Database Management tab.

Use the Shell to create a mailbox database

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

This example creates the mailbox database MailboxDatabase01 and specifies where to create the .edb database file.

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New-MailboxDatabase -Name "MailboxDatabase01" -EdbFilePath D:\DatabaseFiles\MailboxDatabase01.edb

This example creates the mailbox database MailboxDatabase01 and specifies where to create the .edb database file and the log folder path.

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New-MailboxDatabase -Name "MailboxDatabase01" -EdbFilePath D:\DatabaseFiles\MailboxDatabase01.edb -LogFolderPath D:\DatabaseFiles\LogFolder

This example mounts the newly created database MailboxDatabase01.

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Mount-Database -Identity "MailboxDatabase01"

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