Mail Box Sizes

[TZeus]

I am new to uur organization which has about 170 users with no limitations on mail box size. I want to implement a standard policy on mail box size for all users. Some users have 7000 emails which is rediculous. Any one have any idea as to what a reasonable size I should set them at?
Thanks,
Tzeus

 

[zbnet]

7000 emails ridiculous? I have 5500 just in my inbox alone.

I'd say let the business need dictate the required size of the mailboxes, not the other way round.

We start off at 200MB for everyone, increasing by 100MB as required, until they reach 500MB, which is the 'limit' (unless you're a manager, or a friend of the boss, in which case you get to exceed the limit )

 

[xmsre]

You need to talk to the business units in your organization. What are the business objectives that are satisfied by retaining mail? What tpyes of mail needs to be retained and for how long. If you work from this angle, you automatically justify the cost of storage to meet the business objectives that require you to retain the mail. If you find that you are retaining mail that does not support your business objectives, get rid of it; it's a liability.

 

[58sniper]

I get 7000 emails in one mailbox in 5 days......

I agree with xmsre - check to see what's needed. You'll find that the actual number of items is not relevant. You may find that 35MB of space per mailbox is fine. You may find that 200MB is fine. If you have users sending/receiving large files, you may find that other adjustments are necessary.

Pat Richard
Microsoft Exchange MVP

 

[Zelandakh]

I was supporting a firm that had users with 20,000 items in their inbox at times and many staff over 5GB. There were business drivers for retaining email at that size so I increased the storage and the backup capacity.

Equally, in other places, 500MB is seen as a limit beyond which the business will not go.

Setting an arbitrary limit is not a good plan - as the others say, get a decision from the business group.

 

[ntinlin]

Ditto.

You have to get a lead from the business. If users have thousands of items but they are still ok with response speed then leave them be.

Main thing you have to watch out for is your backup and restore windows.
i.e. If a restore because of the size of the databases would be outwith your agreed SLA or OLA times.
You have to make sure that business understands that.

You might also want to check that if using XC2003 std. and you haven't increased the max. store size that the store isn't getting close to 18Gb. Would be users 'fault' I suppose if they hit the limit but you would get the blame for letting them.

Neill