Microsoft exchange server.

[dynamic08]

Number of machines connected up to server and several email account have a few gig of stored emails/files.

Are the files always stored on the server? would this affect local system performance?

 

[DarrenMcCabe]

Are the files always stored on the server? - Yes

Would this affect the performance of the local system? - Yes

However more information is needed:

What version of Exchange
Do your users run cached Exchange profiles?
If < Exchange 2010 do you run scheduled maintenance on your Exchange database.

 

[Posilan]

As Darren said, yes, it can slow down a system if you have a lot of messages in a mailbox.

2010 handles larger mailboxes better than it's predecessors, but the really good feature of it is online archiving - you can archive messages to a separate data store on exchange (so still covered under backups etc) but you can auto schedule it to happen server side.

It is more expensive to set up (you need Enterprise CALs), but well worth it and Keeps clients PC's running nice and quick

Steve

 

[dynamic08]

Not sure on that yet don't have access to the machines but the file is 5gig is that anything special or should it be able to handle that easily enough.

Looking for near instant speeds.

 

[Posilan]

Not sure on that yet don't have access to the machines but the file is 5gig is that anything special or should it be able to handle that easily enough.

Looking for near instant speeds.

a 5GB email attachment??

Steve

 

[dynamic08]

no the pst file is 5gig

 

[Posilan]

Ah ok

PST file limit for Outlook 2003/2007 is 20GB. Outlook 2010 PST limit is 50GB and before 2003 it's 2GB.

A PC will get bogged down with large PST files though if it's short on RAM though. Best to archive the older stuff.

Steve

 

[dynamic08]

So would archiving it reduce the pst file size?

 

[DarrenMcCabe]

It would, but I would suggest educating the user on cleaning up their mail.

People use email as file storage, which it shouldnt be.

If there are important attachments these should be saved to a file server.

 

[dynamic08]

but if they were saved to a file server then outlook would not be able to drag them up would it upon opening user set up folders.

like say we had 10 folders

2001
2002
2003 etc etc

 

[Cromulent]

It would, but I would suggest educating the user on cleaning up their mail.

Don't forget that some industries (I have no idea if the OP is in one of them though) have a legal requirement to keep all emails they send and receive so this may not be an option for everyone.

 

[Paul_Rosser]

Avoid using PST's as they can be a nighmare to manage, also if they are created locally on the users PC then they won't be backed up. If they are created on the server then they cause a lot of I/O on the server and can corrupt really easily if there are any minor network issues.

You can use a product such as Enterprise Vault to automatically archive users emails after a set period, to the user the email still appears in their inbox of folder, but the email itself lives on your KVS server.

It can also be used to store a copy of all emails in/out of your firm as some firms need this for compliance.

Depending if you use any email scanning system such as postini etc then some of them offer archiving as part of their service.

Or you can move your Exchange setup to the cloud and let someone else deal with archiving etc.

But in answer to the original question, yes all exchange data is stored in one (or multiple) .edb files on the exchange server usually unless a SAN is being used.

The .edb file has limits depending on the version of exchange and once it's full then exchange stops working for everyone.