Why there is a different in NTDS.dit file size between a DC and a DC with GC ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter George
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G

George

Hi,

I have three DCs. Two with GC and one without. We have 3 sites in total. Can someone tell me
Why there is a different in NTDS.dit file size between a DC and a DC with GC ?



George
 
Global catalogs hold a partial replica of other domains in the forest so their size is larger by nature.
--
Tony Eversole MCSE, MCSA, Net+, A+
Hi,

I have three DCs. Two with GC and one without. We have 3 sites in total. Can someone tell me
Why there is a different in NTDS.dit file size between a DC and a DC with GC ?



George
 
George said:
Hi,

I have three DCs. Two with GC and one without. We have 3 sites in total.
Can
someone tell me why there is a different in NTDS.dit file size between a DC
and a DC with GC ?

George
Click to expand...

Two reasons. GCs contain a partial replica of every object in AD. So if
you have a multi-domain environment, then the GC is larger partially because
of that.

Second, all attributes that are marked "put in GC", are indexed. So even in
a single domain environment, machines that are GCs will have indexes (and
space in the DB to store those indexes) for more attributes than "normal"
DCs do.
 
When I checked another DC ( also not a GC ) in another site , there is a BIG
difference in the size of the NTDS.dit file than my own site's DC ( not a
GC ) , what could be the reason please ?

George
 
How big is BIG?

There a number of factors that come into this. Aside from the GC being
bigger than the DC, defragmentation also plays a big part in the size. Plus,
the size will never decrease without an offline defrag. So, a new DC will
more than likely have a smaller ntds.dit than one that's been online for a
long time -as the new one would have replicated the current info. The old
one, would have had lots of additions, deletions, etc. Like I said, even
deletions don't free up sapce. You have to do an offline defrag to free up
space.

If you've performed an offline defrag on one and not the others, that one
could be considerably smaller.

Is the size that alarming?

--

Paul Williams

http://www.msresource.net/
http://forums.msresource.net/
 
Compress each offline

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/232122

--

Paul Bergson MCT, MCSE, MCSA, CNE, CNA, CCA

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.



Hi,

I have three DCs. Two with GC and one without. We have 3 sites in total. Can
someone tell me
Why there is a different in NTDS.dit file size between a DC and a DC with GC
?



George
 
3GB's pretty large. How big is your forest? Rough numbers of users,
computers, domains, etc. will be of benefit.

If you don't have a very big forest then...

Perhaps you should do an offline defrag, and while you're in there make sure
you run a semantic database analysis.


--

Paul Williams

http://www.msresource.net/
http://forums.msresource.net/

Yes , the difference is 1.2 GB while the full DIT file is 3GB
 
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