Exchange 2000 Experts Needed....

[Vegito]

Okay, my exchange 2k server has been running for about 2.5 years,

C: W2K Boot Mirror
D: Public - RAID5 11GB
E: Private - RAID5 11GB
F: Log - RAID5 11GB

D & E & F are about 50% full

Exchange server, dual 500 w/ 1.5 GB Memory

The server has a max of 2GB and I can put another 512mb in it to make it smooth but it'll just get run down eventually..

Heres my options..

Get a big server that can support 4GB+ so that when mail pours in, there will be no problem for a while or

Use the second server, with max memory, thus splitting the original exchange into 1 private and 1 public information stores..

Anyone know about big huge servers ?

Or just nuking everyone's mailbox, 15 users Some people have 650 mb of email.. lots of attachments..

 

[Saltin]

How are you handling your log files? These files, while necessary to recover from a crash, restore, etc, take up an awful lot of space on an Exchange Drive if you arent careful. Exchange wont automatically delete old ones either, unless you enable the rollback transaction log feature. If this feature is on, Exchange will only keep the most recent log files (last five of each type) on disk, and it will erase the older ones.
Sometimes people dont like to erase these files. In that case you may want to look into defragging the database files. Esenutil will do it I think, but don't quote me on that.

Finally, you may want to consider placing some limits on your user's storage space. 650mb / person is outrageous.

 

[Psychoholic]

<< Finally, you may want to consider placing some limits on your user's storage space. 650mb / person is outrageous. >>


I agree. Upgrading to accommodate a 650mb mailbox is a waste of money. I don't know your company's role but I'll be willing to make a bet there's no one there that needs that much room.

Most of my users are capped at around 35,000kb. These are the people who just pass around jokes, etc. The max. cap I have is around 65,000kb, and that's people that pass a lot of attachments around. I also created a few basic "help" intranet HTML documents that explains the mailbox limits and how to control/check the size.

 

[socalvvguy]

Hello,
I'm not too sure what the problem is. Are you just wanting to upgrade or do you need to upgrade? The first thing I would do is have everybody cleanout their e-mail. After everybody has cleaned out their e-mai, I would have them (or yourself) set their Outlook to archive automatically. 650 MB of e-mail is a bit outrageous. Your system should easily handle the e-mail. With Dual Processors and 2 Gig of memory, you should be fine. I'm assuming you do the normal maintance with the server such as defragging, OS and Exchange 2000 updates and patches.

 

[dbwillis]

Psychoholic
How are your Exchange users able to check there mailbox sizes?
Right now, weve got 100Mb mailbox limits, once that limits reached, mail is denied (both in and out), I get alot of calls on this, right now I have to use Exchange Admin to check the mailbox sizes (or walk them through right click/props/etc/etc/etc), just wondering if thats what you do.
Thanks

 

[Psychoholic]

In Outlook right-click on their Mailbox. This should be labeled Outlook Today [Mailbox-xxxxxx]. Click on Properties, then click on the Folder Size button. Total size is of course the total size and below that there is a breakdown of the other folders in the mailbox. Sometimes looking at the sizes of the other folders will help you track down what's taking up the majority of the room when they're not sure where their space went.

 

[dbwillis]

Thanks, thats what I walk them through now..was wondering if there was an HTML output from Exchange that shows mailbox sizes by NT ID (kinda like Quota Manager does for us).

Thanks again though

 

[Psychoholic]

<< Thanks, thats what I walk them through now..was wondering if there was an HTML output from Exchange that shows mailbox sizes by NT ID >>


Not that I'm aware of. However, you may be able to create one with a little HTML creativity using the M: share created when you installed Exchange.

 

[Vegito]

Acutally it's the owner that keeps everything live... we have 2.7 terrabyte of storage, so storage is not a problem but exchange has not been upgraded

We backup daily with the veritas backup exec so we rarely lose stuff... i do live test on a monthly basis..

exchange server is running sluggish because of all the stuff in it..

we are a hedge fund in nyc and what happens is we get our maket feed from bloomberg and the other broker and dealer, so all the market levels gets fowarded into a public mail box and we get a lot of research documents. I mean putting these document somewhere also takes up storage but it's easier to maange through exchange since we're sort of using it as a document storage device.

Which is bad, it's killing the server

So these market levels, we get about 200-300 msg an hour and it goes from 6AM to about 7PM

so you see how hard this thing is getting hit..

It's actually running out of physical memory to process the task...

i can add a few more servers and stuff with no problem but eventually it'll run out of memory again... i think year end we'll clean out and archive the mailbox but till then... any suggestions ?

 

[Vegito]

so i went to one of the partners and saw that his sent mail is 400 megs.. i told him we need to archive that.. he say okay, so we have a new record, another partner is 974 MB OF PERSONAL MAIL whaoooooo

gonna have that archive up too...

 

[Psychoholic]

<< so i went to one of the partners and saw that his sent mail is 400 megs.. i told him we need to archive that.. he say okay, so we have a new record, another partner is 974 MB OF PERSONAL MAIL whaoooooo >>


Even with the information you save for researching, with a mailbox that big I knew you'd find some fat to cut.