Big Mailbox - SBS 2003 R2 Dell Install

I've got a new client who has an old server and they have a couple
clients that have large mailboxes (4GB+). Their current situation has
stuff archived but the owners "really" want to have access to their
entire mailbox.

Their archive.pst sits on the server but of course, they have laptops
and cannot access the stuff while traveling unless they have internet
access. They also rely on Google Desktop to search for stuff.

What options do I have for getting everything under a normal OST and
still make it work with the maximum limits according to exchange? I
think the limits are 2GB+ but no more?

I know there is a way to increase the overall size of the exchange
database but how do I go above the predefined limits with ESM?

Any advice is appreciated.

dw

p.s. I know it's not good to go beyond 2GB and I've warned them.
However, the "really" want to have it all in one data store.

I don't think there are any limits on mailbox size in exchange. Look at
sunbelt exchange archiver. It can archive the mail to another server, and
still have it available in outlook and outlook web access.

"Dave W" wrote:

> I've got a new client who has an old server and they have a couple
> clients that have large mailboxes (4GB+). Their current situation has
> stuff archived but the owners "really" want to have access to their
> entire mailbox.
>
> Their archive.pst sits on the server but of course, they have laptops
> and cannot access the stuff while traveling unless they have internet
> access. They also rely on Google Desktop to search for stuff.
>
> What options do I have for getting everything under a normal OST and
> still make it work with the maximum limits according to exchange? I
> think the limits are 2GB+ but no more?
>
> I know there is a way to increase the overall size of the exchange
> database but how do I go above the predefined limits with ESM?
>
> Any advice is appreciated.
>
> dw
>
> p.s. I know it's not good to go beyond 2GB and I've warned them.
> However, the "really" want to have it all in one data store.
>

Exchange is not the limiting factor here, but Outlook is. I have had clients
experence problems when the .ost file (used by Outlook to keep a copy of the
emails when off-line) hits 2GB - the file got corrupted. This is why I
typically now set Exchange to generate warnings when mailboxes grow beyond
1.5GB. I think the client was using Outlook 2003. Not sure if this is a
problem which affects later versions of Outlook or whether its a problem
that Microsoft has now patched.
--
Brian Cryer
www.cryer.co.uk/brian

"SBSindy" <SBSindy@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:D761D7EA-52FF-4491-A176-631AE434B0C8@microsoft.com...
>I don't think there are any limits on mailbox size in exchange. Look at
> sunbelt exchange archiver. It can archive the mail to another server, and
> still have it available in outlook and outlook web access.
>
> "Dave W" wrote:
>
>> I've got a new client who has an old server and they have a couple
>> clients that have large mailboxes (4GB+). Their current situation has
>> stuff archived but the owners "really" want to have access to their
>> entire mailbox.
>>
>> Their archive.pst sits on the server but of course, they have laptops
>> and cannot access the stuff while traveling unless they have internet
>> access. They also rely on Google Desktop to search for stuff.
>>
>> What options do I have for getting everything under a normal OST and
>> still make it work with the maximum limits according to exchange? I
>> think the limits are 2GB+ but no more?
>>
>> I know there is a way to increase the overall size of the exchange
>> database but how do I go above the predefined limits with ESM?
>>
>> Any advice is appreciated.
>>
>> dw
>>
>> p.s. I know it's not good to go beyond 2GB and I've warned them.
>> However, the "really" want to have it all in one data store.
>>

Just found this link which gives more information about the issue I referred
to: http://www.datanumen.com/aexr/problems/2gb-ost.htm. It also indicates
that there is a work-around, although since that appears to be to use .pst
files this may not help, unless the OP were to switch the location of the
..pst files from the server to the local PC/laptop.
--
Brian Cryer
www.cryer.co.uk/brian


"Brian Cryer" <not.here@localhost> wrote in message
news:OjGMQ5u8IHA.2060@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> Exchange is not the limiting factor here, but Outlook is. I have had
> clients experence problems when the .ost file (used by Outlook to keep a
> copy of the emails when off-line) hits 2GB - the file got corrupted. This
> is why I typically now set Exchange to generate warnings when mailboxes
> grow beyond 1.5GB. I think the client was using Outlook 2003. Not sure if
> this is a problem which affects later versions of Outlook or whether its a
> problem that Microsoft has now patched.
> --
> Brian Cryer
> www.cryer.co.uk/brian
>
> "SBSindy" <SBSindy@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:D761D7EA-52FF-4491-A176-631AE434B0C8@microsoft.com...
>>I don't think there are any limits on mailbox size in exchange. Look at
>> sunbelt exchange archiver. It can archive the mail to another server,
>> and
>> still have it available in outlook and outlook web access.
>>
>> "Dave W" wrote:
>>
>>> I've got a new client who has an old server and they have a couple
>>> clients that have large mailboxes (4GB+). Their current situation has
>>> stuff archived but the owners "really" want to have access to their
>>> entire mailbox.
>>>
>>> Their archive.pst sits on the server but of course, they have laptops
>>> and cannot access the stuff while traveling unless they have internet
>>> access. They also rely on Google Desktop to search for stuff.
>>>
>>> What options do I have for getting everything under a normal OST and
>>> still make it work with the maximum limits according to exchange? I
>>> think the limits are 2GB+ but no more?
>>>
>>> I know there is a way to increase the overall size of the exchange
>>> database but how do I go above the predefined limits with ESM?
>>>
>>> Any advice is appreciated.
>>>
>>> dw
>>>
>>> p.s. I know it's not good to go beyond 2GB and I've warned them.
>>> However, the "really" want to have it all in one data store.
>>>
>

Dave W <mtdave@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've got a new client who has an old server and they have a couple
> clients that have large mailboxes (4GB+). Their current situation has
> stuff archived but the owners "really" want to have access to their
> entire mailbox.
>
> Their archive.pst sits on the server but of course, they have laptops
> and cannot access the stuff while traveling unless they have internet
> access. They also rely on Google Desktop to search for stuff.
>
> What options do I have for getting everything under a normal OST and
> still make it work with the maximum limits according to exchange? I
> think the limits are 2GB+ but no more?
>
> I know there is a way to increase the overall size of the exchange
> database but how do I go above the predefined limits with ESM?
>
> Any advice is appreciated.
>
> dw
>
> p.s. I know it's not good to go beyond 2GB and I've warned them.
> However, the "really" want to have it all in one data store.

If you'll pardon my impertinence, I'd say one of your main jobs as a trusted
technical advisor is not necessarily to give the client exactly what he/she
is asking for - it's to make things work smoothly. Sometimes that means
saying 'no'. That being said, a 4GB mailbox is not unheard of -

A few things to note:

You can turn off the mailbox quota entirely for this user, but you
shouldn't. All mailboxes need quotas. You'll need to set it in the registry
as the max quota size you can set in the GUI is 2GB).
http://www.petri.co.il/setting_mailb...s_over_2gb.htm

Outlook 2003 & up won't care what the mailbox (or corresponding OST file)
size is, presuming you aren't using an old format OST file but a new unicode
one

The number of items in any given folder is a bigger problem than the total
size of the mailbox. Keep it well under 5000 items per folder. *Well* under.

Since the max size of your mailbox store is 75GB make sure you can afford to
let mailboxes grow this large. Remember that deleted item retention takes up
space too.

Archive data generally doesn't need to be accessed that frequently. You have
75GB more space in the public folder store, and your remote users can access
that just as easily as their mailboxes via RPC over HTTP, or OWA.

Do not store or access PST files on the server - it isn't supported and can
cause performance problems and data corruption.