Tag Archives: high cpu

High CPU utilization after moving Exchange database

Issue:
After moving an Exchange 2010/2007 database to a new location, the CPU starts spiking with high utilization. msftefd.exe is using most of the CPU cycles and Event IDs 109 and 108 are logged in the System Log by the Search Indexer.

Solution:
After initial troubleshooting, you likely made it to the Microsoft link entitled “The new Search in Exchange Server 2007“.  This article says that the Exchange Service Indexer triggers a crawl in three instances:

  1. Adding a new Mailbox Database
  2. Adding a new Mailbox
  3. Receiving a new email.

What it doesn’t say specifically is moving a database to a new location has the same content indexing consequences as if a new mailbox database was added.  This will trigger a full crawl of the moved database resulting in high CPU utilization.  The process will not end until a MSExchange Search Indexer Event 110 is logged in the system log.

In a real world environment(~1000 users), it will take approximately 1.6 minutes to process 1 gigabyte.

Example: If you move a 100GB database, it will take approximately 2.6 hours to index.  During this time, msftefd.exe will be utilizing most of the CPU cycles.