Mailbox Size Best practices......   

I work for a company with 1,000 users that pretty much does not have a 
maximum limit on mailbox sizes. Our largest mailbox is 3GB and my nightly 
backups are about 600GB (No i am not making this up!!!!!!!). Obviously this 
is a nightmare for me to manage, I am trying to find some official 
documentation on how large mailboxes should be for a company this size. I 
can then provide this info to my manager to start putting policies in place.

Exchange 2003
1,100 Mailboxes
1 frontend server
1 Backend server
Services = POP, SMTP, OWA, IMAP, RPC over HTTPS, etc.....
Note: the workstations are all out in the field and are not on the domain.

date: Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:55:18 -0400   author:   Jef

Re: Mailbox Size Best practices......   

On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:55:18 -0400, "Jef"  wrote:

>I work for a company with 1,000 users that pretty much does not have a 
>maximum limit on mailbox sizes. Our largest mailbox is 3GB and my nightly 
>backups are about 600GB (No i am not making this up!!!!!!!). Obviously this 
>is a nightmare for me to manage, I am trying to find some official 
>documentation on how large mailboxes should be for a company this size. I 
>can then provide this info to my manager to start putting policies in place.
>
>Exchange 2003
>1,100 Mailboxes
>1 frontend server
>1 Backend server
>Services = POP, SMTP, OWA, IMAP, RPC over HTTPS, etc.....
>Note: the workstations are all out in the field and are not on the domain.
>
>
600gigs of mail and 3gig mailboxes won't raise any eyebrows around
here; you're towards the middle of small.
As for best practices, the answer depends on what you need. Microsoft
have their 2GB mailboxes and others have none. Others have 200MB. The
answer is different if you have an archiving solution, possibly,
probably, but not necessarily.
If you want to have a number for management then get the internal MS
IT showcase document which has 2GB on it.

date: Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:12:21 -0400   author:   Mark Arnold [MVP]

Re: Mailbox Size Best practices......   

In article ,
 "Jef"  wrote:

> I work for a company with 1,000 users that pretty much does not have a 
> maximum limit on mailbox sizes. Our largest mailbox is 3GB and my nightly 
> backups are about 600GB (No i am not making this up!!!!!!!). Obviously this 
> is a nightmare for me to manage, I am trying to find some official 
> documentation on how large mailboxes should be for a company this size. I 
> can then provide this info to my manager to start putting policies in place.

I think you'll struggle to find such a document tbh simply because other 
than the physical limits of Exchange, each business and its needs will 
vary.

I would address it from (amongst lots of things) the point of view of:

Backup/restore times.
Performance impact.
Expansion rate and the cost of accommodate that expansion.
Why are the mailboxes so big?

Are your users simply hoarders, do they send fewer, but larger messages, 
if they do is there an alternative?  Do they appreciate or have any 
concept of how much they are storing or how big an email is that they 
are sending?

Essentially I think the best way to begin to put a policy in place is to 
work out what your business needs are, and then look at how you can best 
meet these with Exchange and where appropriate other solutions (i.e. 
Exchange isn't a solution to get big files from A to B).

date: Tue, 17 Jun 2008 21:14:30 +0100   author:   Paul Hutchings

RE: Mailbox Size Best practices......   

There is really no static "best practice" for mailbox size limits. It largely 
depends on your business requirements. Things like the amount of storage you 
have, backup and restore requirements, etc. all have a large impact on what 
you should set it at.

If it were me, I never like having users with mailboxes over 1GB, but then 
again I don't manage exchange servers with thousands of users. I manage 
smaller environments with about 200 mailboxes. I think that a 1GB mailbox is 
more than enough. Then again, in your situation if you had a 1GB limit for 
everyone you would have 1TB of e-mail in a perfect storm! An organization 
with 1000 mailboxes at a 300MB limit would have a maximum store size of 
300GB. 

You may also have groups of users like executives that have higher storage 
requirements. You can put those users in separate databases and set the 
restrictions there. How is your mail divided up? How many storage 
groups/databases do you have?


"Jef" wrote:

> I work for a company with 1,000 users that pretty much does not have a 
> maximum limit on mailbox sizes. Our largest mailbox is 3GB and my nightly 
> backups are about 600GB (No i am not making this up!!!!!!!). Obviously this 
> is a nightmare for me to manage, I am trying to find some official 
> documentation on how large mailboxes should be for a company this size. I 
> can then provide this info to my manager to start putting policies in place.
> 
> Exchange 2003
> 1,100 Mailboxes
> 1 frontend server
> 1 Backend server
> Services = POP, SMTP, OWA, IMAP, RPC over HTTPS, etc.....
> Note: the workstations are all out in the field and are not on the domain.
> 
> 
> 
>

date: Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:27:00 -0700   author:   whuber

Re: Mailbox Size Best practices......   

One issue is that i am trying to move the users from an old server into the 
frontend/backend configuration i have mentioned below and because the 
mailboxes are so large it is taking longer than expected.

Next, in regards to backing up the server. I have 2 storage groups with 
about 3 stores in each group. I am using Backup Exec 12 to do full backups 
of the server every night to an HP storage vault. Previously it took over 20 
hours to do backups because the stores was so large. I have broken the job 
into 2 backups and i am using both tape drives in our HP storage vault and 
it takes less time now. I guess the next question is what are recommended 
backup methods for this many mailboxes. I have not managed a server with 
mailboxes this large so i am un sure how to handle these little issues


"Jef"  wrote in message 
news:u2klTQL0IHA.4848@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>I work for a company with 1,000 users that pretty much does not have a 
>maximum limit on mailbox sizes. Our largest mailbox is 3GB and my nightly 
>backups are about 600GB (No i am not making this up!!!!!!!). Obviously this 
>is a nightmare for me to manage, I am trying to find some official 
>documentation on how large mailboxes should be for a company this size. I 
>can then provide this info to my manager to start putting policies in 
>place.
>
> Exchange 2003
> 1,100 Mailboxes
> 1 frontend server
> 1 Backend server
> Services = POP, SMTP, OWA, IMAP, RPC over HTTPS, etc.....
> Note: the workstations are all out in the field and are not on the domain.
>
>
>

date: Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:40:40 -0400   author:   Jef