Dear ScottC,

Answer of Q1:
No, Creating Storage Group will not create Public Store unless you manually
create them. First you will Create a Storage Group. then you have to options
, either to create a MailStore or Public Store. now if you choosed MailStore
, then you will only create MailStore, put if you choosed Public Store, then
you will create Public Store. so, creating MailStore will not create a Public
Store for the Created Storage Group.

Answer to Q2:

this depened either you are going to do the offline on a local storage drive
or storage located over the network, if the storage is located on the local
server it will take time which is much less than the time required to do the
offline on a storage located on a shared network. if you want to do the
defrag please try to do it in the off time of your company, and try to avoid
not to use a shared drive over the network, because it will be very slow, and
will take hours maybe 4 to 7 hours. this is guessing number, i might be wrong
in my estimation, but what i wanted to say here that it will take long time
to defrag if you used a shared network drive.

please let me know if my post helped you in solving your problems, please
rate this post if you are satisfied from the help i provided.

let me know if you needed more information.

Regards

Alaa Al-Ankar
Blog: http://ExchGuru.blogspot.com