New exchange server for company

[Geonice]

Hi OCers,
So my boss is looking into getting a new exchange server. I am only the inhouse IT guy and then we have an IT company who maintains our server and website. I am just trying to figure out what is needed and if I should be doing it this way.

My IT guy has informed me there is a "corruption" in our mail server that is preventing the emails to be back-upped. We are a small company with roughly 15 users but will hit our 72gig storage limit countless time. The choices I was given are:

1. Ignore it and chance that everything will run smoothly or everything will gown down the drain.

2. He will try and fix the corruption but will take up to 20 hours to do so. 60% chance success rate 20% chance it is fixed but lose old emails 20% chance completely fails lose everything.

3. New 2010 exchange server. This would fix our storage problem and with the new server things should run a little smoother compared to our current server.


Could somebody let me know what would be needed to get a new 2010 server. I realize i am not giving to much info on the servers I am running or anything but I am basically a newbie at this and shooting blanks. Any information would help me right now basically.

[conway]

FYI for you or your IT guy, there's a registry modification that will let your Exchange database grow over the default size limit with no risk.

Anyway, provided he backs up the .edb and .stm file before doing whatever he's doing, offline defrag most likely, there's zero chance of losing everything.

Now, if you're worried about losing emails, provided your users are able to access their mailboxes right now, you could go around and export all of their data to .pst files. That way you don't lose any of the old messages. Then, worst case, your guy creates a brand new empty mailbox store and imports everyone's mailbox back into it. Problem solved and no new server needed.

Also, if 15 people are consuming 72 gigs of storage in an Exchange mailbox store, it's probably a good idea to set up auto archive, and maybe host their archive pst files on the server in their home folders or whatever, so they're backed up. Maybe set up policies to automatically empty their deleted and junk mail items as well.

Exchange scares a lot of IT guys, but it's actually pretty nice. It's so flexible, and common tasks are really simple. The ability to share individual folders such as a boss' inbox for a secretary or whatever, are really unbeatable.

[Geonice]

Could you explain that registry modification a little more for me? The main problem with the current mail server is the available space we are allotted. My company sends large files everyday and all day. We just archived all large users emails 6 months and back we also delete mail all the time. We are at about 60g when we just archived all emails. My employees are not the most tech savy people so telling them to go back into archives to search for old emails is :bang head:.

My IT guy has sent me a quote with what he is going to be doing. Could somebody tell me if this is any good or could I get something better or a little cheaper.

New Dell PowerEdge R510 - $5,495

- E5506 Xeon Processor 2.13GHz, 4M Cache, 800MHz

- 8GB (2x4GB) 1066MHz ECC RAM

- (2x) 160GB 7.2K RPM Hard Drives

- (4x) 500GB 7.2K RPM Hard Drives

- PERC6i Controller

- Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition, includes 5 CALS

- DVD ROM

- RAID 1 plus RAID 10 for PERC/SAS 6ir

- 3 year Pro support

- 750W redundant power supply


Exchange 2010 Standard: $700

Exchange 2010 CAL: $67 each, 35X67= $2345 total

Bes Express: Free

Outlook 2007 - $105 each
Office 2007 upgrade - $245 per seat
(we will need to count the number of users that need to get upgrade)

Backup Exec 2010 (upgrade) - $620
4 agents for Backup Exec(upgrade) - $370


Labor:

- Remove old Bes server form network and install Bes express on another server.

- Prepare new server, Install Exchange 2010 on new server and move mailbox to new server

- Upgrade office versions to 2007 if needed.

Total 25 hours estimate

[conway]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/912375

If you're running 2003 Standard, this will let you max out at 75 gb apparently, so it may not help you.

The key is to find out how much of your mailbox store is actually in use. What happens is when you delete items, it empties that space inside of the database, but the file itself stays the same size. So you could have a 60gb mailbox store database fileset, with 35 gigs free inside of it. If you dig through event viewer, there will be entries in there every time it runs an online defrag. Depending on how you have it set up, that could be nightly or weekly, but each time it completes it will tell you how much free space the file has in it. If it's a large amount, an offline defrag would reclaim that. It will also give you a real idea of how much space you're actually using.

[Geonice]

So another IT company looked into our server and told me that basically I am running out of space entirely on my server so it is best to just get a new 2010 server. Would the above server suffice or is there something better I should be looking at like SSD drive for the OS or more ram.

[conway]

I think that's plenty, probably even overkill for just an Exchange server, at least in the storage department.

[newbski]

I would do a RAID1 for the 160GB for OS/Install and 3x500GB's are in RAID 5 for Exchange data, with the 4th HDD(500GB) as a global hotspare?

I think the 500GB drives may be a little big IMO if you are just running Exchange and perhaps BES. Might be able to get 320GB drives but if it the price is pretty small than I wouldn't be to concerned.

Also setting up mailbox quotas or a mailbox rule to purge data over X amount of days will keep the size down. Conway already said this but it will get the job done, cheaply. Because everyone always thinks they need everything. Especially the 2 yr old lunch invite emails. :)

[TempliNocturnus]

That's way overkill for a small company with 15 users. I'd say ditch the mail server all together and go with one of google's business email solutions. You could probably also ditch whatever company you guys outsourced to do your IT.

[insanemonkey]

I agree that it seems like you are using a lot of space for very few users. Maybe you really do send a ton of really big files but still. What is the limit set too for file size on e-mails and how often do you archive e-mails? Every company is different, but I find that on average you only need about 90 days worth of e-mail in your mailbox. The rest can be archived and stored in a network home folder. Do you have users that travel off site a lot?

[Geonice]

We have just archived all emails of current users up to 6 months back and all old employees emails have been archived. We do have offsite employees who travel and will remote. My server is now just going down the drain my backup is failing I have roughly 7gig of space left on one of my servers. Emails is about to hit the limit again after we just archived all emails a month ago.

[SMTP]

We have just archived all emails of current users up to 6 months back and all old employees emails have been archived. We do have offsite employees who travel and will remote. My server is now just going down the drain my backup is failing I have roughly 7gig of space left on one of my servers. Emails is about to hit the limit again after we just archived all emails a month ago.

I'll go out on a limb and guess your current admins have never run eseutil on your Exchange server. If you guys are really filling up the database that quickly with only 15 users it may be time to look at mailbox quotas. How much email do people have in their deleted items? You can control that with a policy as well. Get your Exchange backed up and go with the other suggestion of reclaiming the whitespace in the Exhange db.

[brucoman]

~70 gig for 15 users? insane

you didnt say if this is a public company...what are the written retention policies and perhaps they need revising

pst's are not the answer...pst's are EVIL and should be abolished. Your first lawsuit will have you looking for a new job during Evidence Discovery

on-line email hosts will balk at your ~5 gig each mailbox

Bring up a fresh Exchange 2007 or 2010 Std. Each db will hold 16TB plus can have up to 5 db's. Move the mailboxes 1 at a time to maintain your sanity

After crisis is over develop/beg/borrow/steal a http file transfer service and tell your pig users to use that and limit email attachment sizes and set up quotas