Exchange Server 2003 Questions 2

[BraddersBU]

Hiya all,

I have 2 questions, we are running exchange server 2003. We are having problems with spam and I need to know how to adjust the settings that move certin messages to the junk folder.

Also, we are only a small business and our exchange server is growing rapidly. I have set up auto archieveing, but it does not seem to be affecting the size. Is there some tool that allows you to see the data stored - i suspect it may be old users that are no longer with the business?

Many thanks
Bradley

 

[zbnet]

Where to start with your posting?

Your spam problems can be dealt with using Exchange -

http://www.petri.co.il/block_spam_with_exchange2003_imf.htm

gives a great overview of using the Intelligent Message Filter to flag spam. It's 'spamicity' rating of 1-9 that IMF gives each message that can be used to dump spam into the junk mail folder.

Regarding the size of your mailstore - presumably you are growing in mail volume, not extra users? The size of the mailstore files (*.edb and *stm) will only ever grow normally, any deleted email in there is simply marked as deleted - it becomes 'white space' - and is then available for reuse in the future. Event ID 1221 (usually overnight) will tell you how much free space your database has, although if the size of the database files is growing this means there is no white space left - or the white space you are created each day with deletions or erchiving of old email from the mailstore is smaller than the volume of new email.

 

[58sniper]

Check the deleted item retention (DIRT) and deleted mailbox retention settings on each database. Common DIRT settings are 14 and 30 days, and common mailbox times are 30 days. If you have settings that are much longer than this, that would cause items to remain in the database longer.

I'm not a fan of auto archiving. It's complete crap, and shouldn't be used.

You didn't say how many users and how big the database is.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[BraddersBU]

Hi Gents,

We have 12 users.

Many thanks
Bradley

 

[BraddersBU]

Total Exchange folder size is 14.5GB

 

[BraddersBU]

Total Exchange folder size is 14.5GB and I have checked and it has 4mb free after online defrag

 

[58sniper]

Okay - what are your mailbox limits set to? 12 users and 14.5GB of data is NOTHING. I have single users with mailboxes bigger than that.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/