Tech Praise 2.0 – Exchange Mailbox Max Limits

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[woody]

Tech Praise 2.0 – Exchange Mailbox Max Limits Setting

Maximum Mailbox Size

To set the limit of how big a mailbox can be before Exchange prevents a user from sending a mail message, set the “Prohit send at (KB)” limit as described.

Open the Exchange System Manager under Start –> All Programs –> Microsoft Exchange –> System Manager.

Browse the Mailbox store under Administrative Groups –> First Administrative Group –> Servers –> ARCEX –> First Storage Group –> Mailbox Store.

Right click on Mailbox Store, and go to the limits tab. Update the desired fields.

Maximum Internal Message Size

This document explains how to set the maximum size of incoming and outgoing mail messages with your organization.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322679

Browse the Message Delivery option under Global Settings –> Message Delivery.

Right click on Message Delivery, and go to the Defaults tab. Update the desired fields.

Maximum External Message Size

This document explains how to set the maximum size mail messages being sent outside the organization.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322679

Browse the Internet Mail SMTP Connector option under Global Settings –> Administrative Groups –> First Administrative Group –> Routing Groups –> First Routing Group –> Connectors.

Right click on Internet Mail SMTP Connector, and go to the Content Restrictions tab. Update the Allowed sizes field.

-Peter
Link to this and my other postings: Techpraise.com

• This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by woody.

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Ha ha, don’t show this to my IT manager or I’ll never email again.

Have you implemented these suggestions? How did they go over with users?

What I think would be better than an NDR for an inappropriately large internal message would be to catch the message before it is sent and propose alternatives, such as, save to a shared location, use IM, and so forth. Hopefully then users would not pile up rejected messages with huge attachments in their Sent Items. But implementing this would require installing code at the workstation level, so probably not going to happen any time soon…

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I did implement these. My organization is very small ~30 active users, and we don’t have a need to email large internal files, so I haven’t received any complaints.
But based on your comment I raised the internal message size from 10mb to 20mb. My external outgoing message size max is still set to 10mb.

I will still have the problem of potential large sent item boxes for users from large rejected messages. I will have to monitor mailbox size manually on a periodic basis.

Thanks for the reply!
Peter

Ha ha, don’t show this to my IT manager or I’ll never email again.

Have you implemented these suggestions? How did they go over with users?

What I think would be better than an NDR for an inappropriately large internal message would be to catch the message before it is sent and propose alternatives, such as, save to a shared location, use IM, and so forth. Hopefully then users would not pile up rejected messages with huge attachments in their Sent Items. But implementing this would require installing code at the workstation level, so probably not going to happen any time soon…

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As the exchange administrator for my company, I’m VERY happy to report that we’ve outsourced our email to Microsoft Online Services. They recently cut their prices and next year they will give each user a 25GB mailbox (right now its 5GB).

That said, you lose some flexibility with managed email. If you want to continue using your existing solution, then you need management buy-in. There are a couple of options:
1. Take the amount of disk space, and divide it by the number of users, to get the number of GB/user. Be sure to set aside space for transaction logs and company growth.
2. Determine some tiered system where the bottom rung gets 1GB mailboxes, the next tier 2GB, managers 5GB, etc.
3. Buy an archiving system like Symantec Enterprise Vault which will archive off email based on age or size.

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That’s some great input.

About point 1 and 2)
I’ll do some research creating tiered exchange groups with different rungs of storage. I know how to set the storage levels for individual mailboxes, but not groups yet.
Do you have a link on how to set up a group for something like this?

About point 3)
Buying an archiving system is not an option for a small nonprofit like mine. Since we are realtively new, (~5 yrs old) we haven’t hit maximum capacity yet.
The only option I have considered, but not implemented, is setting up autoarchives to pst’s on the users windows shared network drives. I know, it would be a messy solution…

Thanks,
Peter

As the exchange administrator for my company, I’m VERY happy to report that we’ve outsourced our email to Microsoft Online Services. They recently cut their prices and next year they will give each user a 25GB mailbox (right now its 5GB).

That said, you lose some flexibility with managed email. If you want to continue using your existing solution, then you need management buy-in. There are a couple of options:
1. Take the amount of disk space, and divide it by the number of users, to get the number of GB/user. Be sure to set aside space for transaction logs and company growth.
2. Determine some tiered system where the bottom rung gets 1GB mailboxes, the next tier 2GB, managers 5GB, etc.
3. Buy an archiving system like Symantec Enterprise Vault which will archive off email based on age or size.

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That’s some great input.

About point 1 and 2)
I’ll do some research creating tiered exchange groups with different rungs of storage. I know how to set the storage levels for individual mailboxes, but not groups yet.
Do you have a link on how to set up a group for something like this?

About point 3)
Buying an archiving system is not an option for a small nonprofit like mine. Since we are realtively new, (~5 yrs old) we haven’t hit maximum capacity yet.
The only option I have considered, but not implemented, is setting up autoarchives to pst’s on the users windows shared network drives. I know, it would be a messy solution…

Thanks,
Peter

Point 1/2: This is done on the mailbox store level.
Point 2: Simply set up additional Mailbox Stores–one for workers, one for managers, one for VP’s (or whatever). Then set the lowest limit on the worker store, the middle limit on the managers, and maybe leave the VP’s unlimited (although please consider your time-to-recover for large stores, if/when you experience a crash)

I would suggest taking a look at the Microsoft online services. They have a free trial. Price for Exchange only (5GB per user, you can allocate 1GB to one user and 9GB to another) is $5/month/user, 5 user minimum. If you want Exchange (5GB pooled)+Sharepoint+Live Meeting+Communicator, that $10/month/user, 5 user minimum.

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Thanks for the advice Eric.

I am now looking for materials to study on how to create a new mailbox store, and then how to move mailboxes to it. I like the Petri IT Knowledgebase, but didn’t find any appropriate documents there.

Point 1/2: This is done on the mailbox store level.
Point 2: Simply set up additional Mailbox Stores–one for workers, one for managers, one for VP’s (or whatever). Then set the lowest limit on the worker store, the middle limit on the managers, and maybe leave the VP’s unlimited (although please consider your time-to-recover for large stores, if/when you experience a crash)

I would suggest taking a look at the Microsoft online services. They have a free trial. Price for Exchange only (5GB per user, you can allocate 1GB to one user and 9GB to another) is $5/month/user, 5 user minimum. If you want Exchange (5GB pooled)+Sharepoint+Live Meeting+Communicator, that $10/month/user, 5 user minimum.

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Thanks for the advice Eric.

I am now looking for materials to study on how to create a new mailbox store, and then how to move mailboxes to it. I like the Petri IT Knowledgebase, but didn’t find any appropriate documents there.

1. Open Exchange System Manager
2. Expand Administrative Groups, First Administrative Group, servers, [mail server name], First Storage Group
3. Right-click on First Storage Group and click New> Mailbox Store
4. General tab: type in a mailbox name (managers)
5. Database tab: browse to the locations where you want the database and streaming database files to exist.
6. Limit: set the storage limits as desired
7. Click OK
8. Run a full back up ASAP, as the log files now being generated won’t work with your previous backup.
9. Go to your other mailbox store and expand it to mailboxes
10. Select the mailboxes you want to move to managers (you can use shift and ctrl keys to select multiple mailboxes), right click and click exchange tasks
11. Select Move Mailbox and click Next
12. Select the new mailstore and click next.
13. Repeat for each desired mailstore.

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Hi Eric,
I just got back from my Christmas vacation. I have a follow up question for you.

-Are there any limitations to moving mailboxes to a new store when users are logged into their Exchange account in Outlook?

Thanks,
Peter

1. Open Exchange System Manager
2. Expand Administrative Groups, First Administrative Group, servers, [mail server name], First Storage Group
3. Right-click on First Storage Group and click New> Mailbox Store
4. General tab: type in a mailbox name (managers)
5. Database tab: browse to the locations where you want the database and streaming database files to exist.
6. Limit: set the storage limits as desired
7. Click OK
8. Run a full back up ASAP, as the log files now being generated won’t work with your previous backup.
9. Go to your other mailbox store and expand it to mailboxes
10. Select the mailboxes you want to move to managers (you can use shift and ctrl keys to select multiple mailboxes), right click and click exchange tasks
11. Select Move Mailbox and click Next
12. Select the new mailstore and click next.
13. Repeat for each desired mailstore.

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Hi Eric,
I just got back from my Christmas vacation. I have a follow up question for you.

-Are there any limitations to moving mailboxes to a new store when users are logged into their Exchange account in Outlook?

Thanks,
Peter

Exchange puts the mailbox in a maintenance mode, so the user is logged out and can’t do anything. If they leave Outlook open during the move, they will get a “Exchange server has changed something on your mailbox and you need to reopen” message when the move is complete.

KB article on mailbox moves

You can schedule a start and stop time for the mailbox moves, so they kick off at 10pm and stop at 6am. Keep in mind that the “stop” can take up to an hour, so include that in your move calculations.

I like to sort the mailboxes to move by size, and move the largest ones first. Since the stop time cancels those mailboxes in progress, and all progress on those 4 is lost, sorting by size makes it so that the large mailboxes finish and you don’t lose as much time.

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Just happened to be poking around….

According to MS it’s not a good idea to use network shares for PST files.
MS – Why personal folder files are unsupported over a LAN or over a WAN link

Until we figure out some type of archival system we’ve been forcing our users to use Terminal server with the PST files local on the TS machine, or the local HDD.

By the way, any recommendations for Exchange archival systems? I’ve been looking at Symantec, GFI and Sunbelt.
Kent

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Just happened to be poking around….

According to MS it’s not a good idea to use network shares for PST files.
MS – Why personal folder files are unsupported over a LAN or over a WAN link

Until we figure out some type of archival system we’ve been forcing our users to use Terminal server with the PST files local on the TS machine, or the local HDD.

By the way, any recommendations for Exchange archival systems? I’ve been looking at Symantec, GFI and Sunbelt.
Kent

I’ve had a pretty good experience with Symantec Enterprise Vault. I have over 30 million objects archived, 3TB original size, about 2 TB now.

Key points:
1. have separate drives for SQL, SQL logs, EV indexes, and EV data. A separate SQL database server is recommended–that’s what we’re using for the above deployment.
2. DO NOT USE RAID5 for EV indexes (and if you can afford it, the data). Use RAID 1 or RAID 10.

I have the contact info of an official Symantec implementer, PM me if you want his contact info.

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I have a “home-built” email archiving system which is a Windows Workstation that receives a journaled mailbox account. This system uses POP3 services on Exchange to download all journaled emails- thus an archival system. Within the workstation’s Outlook account, I use rule sets to filter incoming, outbound, and SPAM email into separate PST files created monthly. After I have created new pst files for a new month, I reset rules to point to the new PST files, then remove the old month’s from Outlook. Then I burn multiple DVD’s with the old month’s pst files and store them safely. We are not required to archive emails, but I find it helpful.

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