moving a mailbox onto a different server

[technicaluser4]

Hi I am planning to create a second MS Exchange server 2003 to use it for old mailboxes and take them off the primary server.

Which is the best method to do this esepcially with large mailboxes?

Can i have the "dormant/second" exchange server on a completely different domain?

 

[ShackDaddy]

The second server has to be in the same domain. It will be added to the existing Exchange organization. Just install Exchange 2003, choose to install it into the existing organization. Once it's installed, you can easily move mailboxes between the two simply by right-clicking a mailbox in the mailbox list and choosing to move it. If it's a large mailbox, it will just take a while.

But I have to ask, why go through the hassle of having an additional Exchange server when you could just use ExMerge to archive the mailboxes to .pst? Even if the mailboxes are much larger than 2gb, you could still export by year and have JSmith2009.pst and JSmith 2010.pst. That way you are not having to support the overhead of a whole different server, and if you ever upgrade this client to a new version of Exchange (on-premise or cloud) you could import these .pst files into the system for indexing.

Dave Shackelford
ThirdTier.net
TrainSignal.com

 

[technicaluser4]

Thanks for your reply!..therefore first I need to install a win2003 server within the same domain, then install MS exchange within the same organisation domain?

The reason why I am doing this is that i have a mailbox that is used to archive all the messages.
This mailbox has become 10s of GB so instead of using exmerge and splitting all those emails in 2GB files which is a hassle, i am planning to use a second sever to throw the old archived messages from time to time.
This way I will also be able to reduce the size of the main database on the main server whilst the dormant server will be used just to host archived mailboxes.

 

[ShackDaddy]

Yes. Install a server. Join it to the same domain. Run Exchange setup. Choose to install the new server into the existing Exchange organization rather than creating a new organization.

Dave Shackelford
ThirdTier.net
TrainSignal.com