I am currently looking after our exchange server that is home to about 250 accounts. rather then explain this in story format, here are some facts: - Mailstore on exchange 3 years ago was 125GB today 240GB , 20GB left of the disk where store is. - I on a daily basis chase and beg willing users to empty sents and deleted's just to make whitespace. - 50% of Users refuse to delete email - top 30 ( of 250 ) user mailboxes range from 3GB - 13GB ranging from 50,000 - 80,000 items in there email. - users are complaining about slow email. - other members in I.T. don't want to enforce mailbox limits, and also want to avoid PST's. those familiar with this scenario should see where I'm going with this, I am trying to present to people within my dept some outside advised and direction as to where we should be going, ... I look forward to some support :) Thanks

I think you know what you need to do. Enforce mailbox limits. Ask end users to perform housekeeping or consider using mailboxmanager to di it on their behalf. Or, get more storage and create more databases (new SG) and move the heavy users to that database, reduce some effect it has on the other users. Dont go down the PST route, instead use an archiving product or a service in the cloud. If you;re struggling then highlight to your management, if they dont care, make it clear not to come to you when Exchange is down. Sukh

Size of the mailbox will have nothing to do with the speed of email access. The number of items in a single folder can, so users should be encouraged to store items outside of the Inbox. Sub folders etc. Try to keep the inbox below about 5,000 items for optimum performance. Otherwise I would recommend an upgrade to a more recent version of Exchange and you look at one of the archiving products. Your main issue is that you are looking for a technical solution for a behavioural problem. You need to get management on board with trying to work with what you have. You can basically say to management that they have one of two choices only: 1. Enforce limits (by management decree, it has to come form the top so that no one can get an exception). 2. Give you money for an upgrade and/or additional resources. You have no other options, and management need to know that the status quo cannot continue. However as IT, you cannot drive this, it has to be a business decision, not an IT decision. It may well come down to you writing an email to the upper management with your concerns and if they do nothing, store a copy of it. When email falls over because of the lack of space you can do basically say "told you so". SimonSimon Butler, Exchange MVP Blog | Exchange Resources | In the UK? Hire Me.

I think you know what you need to do. Enforce mailbox limits. Ask end users to perform housekeeping or consider using mailboxmanager to di it on their behalf. Or, get more storage and create more databases (new SG) and move the heavy users to that database, reduce some effect it has on the other users. Dont go down the PST route, instead use an archiving product or a service in the cloud. If you;re struggling then highlight to your management, if they dont care, make it clear not to come to you when Exchange is down. Sukh

Size of the mailbox will have nothing to do with the speed of email access. The number of items in a single folder can, so users should be encouraged to store items outside of the Inbox. Sub folders etc. Try to keep the inbox below about 5,000 items for optimum performance. Otherwise I would recommend an upgrade to a more recent version of Exchange and you look at one of the archiving products. Your main issue is that you are looking for a technical solution for a behavioural problem. You need to get management on board with trying to work with what you have. You can basically say to management that they have one of two choices only: 1. Enforce limits (by management decree, it has to come form the top so that no one can get an exception). 2. Give you money for an upgrade and/or additional resources. You have no other options, and management need to know that the status quo cannot continue. However as IT, you cannot drive this, it has to be a business decision, not an IT decision. It may well come down to you writing an email to the upper management with your concerns and if they do nothing, store a copy of it. When email falls over because of the lack of space you can do basically say "told you so". SimonSimon Butler, Exchange MVP Blog | Exchange Resources | In the UK? Hire Me.