Microsoft KB Archive/289489

= The Size of the Ntds.dit File May Not Be the Same on Different Domain Controllers =

PSS ID Number: 289489

Article Last Modified on 3/26/2004

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The information in this article applies to:


 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP1
 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP1

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This article was previously published under Q289489



SUMMARY
This article describes some of the variables that can affect the size of the Ntds.dit file on a domain controller.

The size of the Active Directory database file, Ntds.dit, may not be consistent across all domain controllers in a domain. This situation is not unusual as the databases are independently constructed. The data is replicated between domain controllers, not the database, so there is no guarantee that the files are going to be the same size across all domain controllers.



MORE INFORMATION
Some of the variables that can affect the size of the Ntds.dit file on a domain controller are:  A domain controller may be a global catalog. The global catalog server contains data about every object in the forest, not just the domain for which it is a member. In a multi-domain forest, the Ntds.dit file on the global catalog can be considerably larger than on its non-global catalog peers. Active Directory routinely performs online database defragmentation, but this is limited to the disposal of tombstone objects. The database cannot be compacted while Active Directory is mounted. An Ntds.dit file that has been defragmented offline, and thus compacted, may be smaller than the file on its peers.

For additional information about Active Directory database defragmentation, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

229602 Defragmentation of the Active Directory Database

232122 Performing Offline Defragmentation of the Active Directory Database

 The NTFS file system can only report the size of a file when it is opened. With the Ntds.dit file, this file system considers the size of the file when the domain controller had been previously restarted. If many Active Directory objects had been added to the database, and one of the domain controllers had been restarted, the NTFS file system is most likely to report a larger file size for the Ntds.dit file than on peer domain controllers.

Note If you want accurate database size information, set the Directory Service Garbage Collection diagnostic key to 1, instead of 0. Every time the Garbage Collection process is run, Active Directory can accurately log the current total and available database sizes.

Keywords: kbenv kbfile kbinfo kbnetwork KB289489

Technology: kbwin2000AdvServ kbwin2000AdvServSearch kbWin2000AdvServSP1 kbwin2000Search kbwin2000Serv kbwin2000ServSearch kbwin2000ServSP1 kbWinAdvServSearch

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