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RetroMUFC
Center Forward
join:2003-02-05
Bethel, NC

RetroMUFC

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Exchange user size limits

What do you guys set your users to for mailbox size limits? Our heavy users I had set the issue warning limit at 19GB and prohibit send/receive at 20GB and just today raised them +5Gb on each. Those limits just seem extremely high to me and I still have users that complain that they don't have enough growth or are having problems meeting quota, thus the increase today. I don't see any real performance issues client or server side just concerned about growth. We are in the construction industry with some project managers who do receive some larger emails, especially internally. I have about 275 users and this is Exchange 2010.

The only real problem I see is if users have to rebuild their cache and they are across a WAN link. Hell even local rebuilding a 20+Gb cache is going to take a while.

Just wanted to compare my setup to you guys.
Moffetts
join:2005-05-09
San Mateo, CA

Moffetts

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Unlimited, usually. That helps sell storage, but the problem is we have some user boxes that are north of 60GB.

RetroMUFC
Center Forward
join:2003-02-05
Bethel, NC

RetroMUFC

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If I had unlimited sizes I would be right there with you

Weasel
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join:2001-12-03
Minnesota

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I have ours set to 5GB per user. Our biggest users are in the 2-3GB neighborhood, but I have also worked to train staff to delete e-mails they don't need.
mj3431
join:2003-04-21
STL, MO

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1-3g normal here. Largest is 7g and we use retention policies to help out. I'd start checking sent items and ask people if they really need to go back decades. We restrict sent items to 400 days for normal users and 800 for VIPs.

exocet_cm
Writing
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join:2003-03-23
Brooklyn, NY

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Unlimited but there is a plan to move to 2013 with a cap of 20 GB.
tomdlgns
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join:2003-03-21

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regarding internal emails/attachments (large and small) isn't there a setting on the server that stores 1 copy of the attachment in 1 location and references that location for all users that were sent the same attachment? that way (1) 10mb file doesn't take up 100mb of space (if it were emailed to 10 people).

Kilroy
MVM
join:2002-11-21
Saint Paul, MN

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I'm at 1GB with 977MB free. What the heck are people sending that they need 20GB? I want to say my personal e-mail that goes back to last century is under 10GB.

Sounds like some education might be a good thing. Do you really need 20GB of e-mail?
tomdlgns
Premium Member
join:2003-03-21

tomdlgns

Premium Member

said by Kilroy:

Sounds like some education might be a good thing. Do you really need 20GB of e-mail?

educating users is important, but most of the time they don't listen. until user are held accountable, most of them won't care when it comes to learning more about their computer/environment.

20gb is not needed. if they say they need it, they are most likely lying. companies with mailboxes that size should look into archiving. i don't know much about exchange administration (unfortunately), but there has to be a solution that automatically moves emails from the exchange database(s) into some sort or archive server.

the most common issue i see is that a user will use their email as a file server. if someone sends you a large video/documents/pictures/etc you should be saving that to your network drive or into a project folder. it does take some work, which is why users usually don't do it.

we have users that work in the same department and have their own share on the file server but still continue to email documents to everyone in their department via email. make changes, attach and send back....sent folder and inbox is over-saturated with emails/files that are not needed.

Kilroy
MVM
join:2002-11-21
Saint Paul, MN

Kilroy

MVM

Forgot to clean out my e-mail 1st of the month. I'm up to 986MB free after dumping January's mail. I only keep two month's worth of e-mail, the few I know I'll need them later policy type excluded.
JoelC707
Premium Member
join:2002-07-09
Lanett, AL

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said by RetroMUFC:

We are in the construction industry with some project managers who do receive some larger emails, especially internally.

Question. If both users are "internal", why are they emailing the data and not using a file server and just referencing the location on the file server? Seems like that could free up some space right there.

As for me, I do unlimited (though I do have attachment limits on send/receive) but I'm also a small shop with just a few people to support so "unlimited" isn't really much. I think my mailbox is the largest at something like 20 gigs but I also have kept every email since I started working there in 2004. I've even gone in and manually sorted them into years and quarters for easier browsing.

RetroMUFC
Center Forward
join:2003-02-05
Bethel, NC

RetroMUFC

Member

said by JoelC707:

Question. If both users are "internal", why are they emailing the data and not using a file server and just referencing the location on the file server? Seems like that could free up some space right there.

That is true but users just get lazy. Not only that but we have multiple sites, some across WAN links, where accessing a file server can be a slower process and our users are extremely impatient. It is is sitting right there in their email cache they open it instantly.
mikefxu
join:2004-10-05
Titusville, FL

mikefxu

Member

said by RetroMUFC:

said by JoelC707:

Question. If both users are "internal", why are they emailing the data and not using a file server and just referencing the location on the file server? Seems like that could free up some space right there.

That is true but users just get lazy. Not only that but we have multiple sites, some across WAN links, where accessing a file server can be a slower process and our users are extremely impatient. It is is sitting right there in their email cache they open it instantly.

Probably CYA, evidence I sent Johnny the TPS reports.

RetroMUFC
Center Forward
join:2003-02-05
Bethel, NC

RetroMUFC

Member

That's also true, a lot of "I need to prove I emailed it" type stuff I hear that very frequently.
RetroMUFC

RetroMUFC

Member

Ok guys so here is a good one. I decided to pull up the most recent complainants email account to see just how he was using his allocated 20GB space. He has over 500 unread messages in his inbox stretching back 4 years. So instead of increasing his mail quota I just let him know that I looked at his account and that a good start would be clearing out the unread messages from his inbox instead. Smh

Nightfall
My Goal Is To Deny Yours
MVM
join:2001-08-03
Grand Rapids, MI

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We use Office 365 here and don't worry about mailbox sizes with 50gb mailboxes. When we had on premise exchange servers, we used 5gb size limits. With 200 users, we wanted to be able to offer more though. Office 365 has been great for us.

Msradell
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join:2008-12-25
Louisville, KY

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I don't understand the justification for mailboxes that large. Business security, document retention and archival policies should require that users maintain minimal records in the mail system. Our corporate policy is that no user may have more than 5 GB in their mailbox and most of them are down below 2 GB! It's actually being debated to lower the allowable limits to about 3 GB and possibly as low is 2 GB
tomdlgns
Premium Member
join:2003-03-21

tomdlgns

Premium Member

said by Msradell:

I don't understand the justification for mailboxes that large. Business security, document retention and archival policies should require that users maintain minimal records in the mail system. Our corporate policy is that no user may have more than 5 GB in their mailbox and most of them are down below 2 GB! It's actually being debated to lower the allowable limits to about 3 GB and possibly as low is 2 GB

it depends on the company/management. if owners/CEOs/upper management don't agree with IT/email policies, then it typically gets ugly. when owners/CEOs/upper management agree that IT/email policies are needed and make sure they are followed, then it is much easier to keep things clean.

LazMan
Premium Member
join:2003-03-26
Beverly Hills, CA

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Standard mailbox size here is 350 meg... Execs, engineers and others that have a legitimate case for more, get a gig.

Msradell
Premium Member
join:2008-12-25
Louisville, KY

Msradell

Premium Member

said by LazMan:

Standard mailbox size here is 350 meg... Execs, engineers and others that have a legitimate case for more, get a gig.

+1 anyone who keeps these huge mail files is slowing down their system plus quite possibly violating federal document retention laws for corporations!
lorennerol
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join:2003-10-29
Seattle, WA

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I've yet to see a mailbox over 10GB that was well-kept. Over that size, people just aren't doing any housekeeping and so increasing limits just exacerbates the problem; instead of 20,000 inbox items needing review/purge, they end up with 40,000. Office 365 with the 50GB limit is really just kicking the can down the road until the problem is 500% worse.

That said, we just tell clients that it's a management call: They can work to change behavior, or they can throw money at the problem, at least in a self-hosted environment.
jst3751
Premium Member
join:2004-07-08
Rowland Heights, CA

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The way newer versions of Exchange work, it is by default. If user A sends an email to 25 internal users local Exchange mail boxes, and they are ALL setup as MAPI accounts, then yes only one message is stored in the database.
JoelC707
Premium Member
join:2002-07-09
Lanett, AL

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said by tomdlgns:

regarding internal emails/attachments (large and small) isn't there a setting on the server that stores 1 copy of the attachment in 1 location and references that location for all users that were sent the same attachment? that way (1) 10mb file doesn't take up 100mb of space (if it were emailed to 10 people).

Yes, that's called Single Instance Store or SIS. Though I think more recent versions are taking that a step further with block level deduplication.
lorennerol
Premium Member
join:2003-10-29
Seattle, WA

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said by jst3751:

The way newer versions of Exchange work

They killed that in Exchange 2013 in order to somehow reduce disk I/O.
jst3751
Premium Member
join:2004-07-08
Rowland Heights, CA

jst3751

Premium Member

said by lorennerol:

They killed that in Exchange 2013 in order to somehow reduce disk I/O.

Microsoft Givith.

Microsoft Takith Away!
applerule
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join:2012-12-23
Northeast TN
(Software) pfSense
ARRIS SB6183
Asus RT-N66

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Short and sweet: 500mb for non-corporate office employees, 2gb for most corp employees. Prohibit send at limit, always allow receive. Some exception users (a very small number) are at 3-5gb limits. I work in retail. We have no enterprise-level archival solution at all. Users that want to keep stuff beyond caps have to use PST's and manage it themselves. We have upper level management support though.

OmenQ
Spazz
Premium Member
join:2003-03-21
Continuum

2 recommendations

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What always gets me is when a user gets the "Your mailbox is full" message and forwards it to me, asking me what it means.

It means YOUR MAILBOX IS FULL. /facepalm

SoJo
I'll Sleep when I am Dead
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join:2002-05-07
Gilroy, CA

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We run Exchange 2010 with 20g notify and 25g hard limit. We also use EMC's Email archiver. We archive anything older than 60 days. Doesn't do squat for .OST size on the client side but storage is king.

Albion
join:2003-04-14
Neptune, NJ

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2GB Limit here for a K-12 Education system.

mr_slick
join:2003-05-22
Lynnwood, WA

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We have a 1GB mailbox and a 1GB archive, with no auto-archiving (users have to manually archive messages). I hear we used to allow pst files but not anymore (I wish we still did as I am a packrat with computer files including email). I admit though that the current allotment would be sufficient for me if I managed my box better. I work in IT but have nothing to do with admin of the network & servers. I work in financial sector for a 50K+ user company, everyone has this setup except for a small amount of approved exceptions.