Exchange 2003 Mailbox Size Guidelines?

I was wondering if there is any documentation from Microsoft or third
parties that have stated mailbox size limitions, performance based on
mailbox size and specific Outlook clients, etc?

I'm familiar with the documentation related to Outlook <-> Exchange network
traffic, and limitations on Store size based on specific versions, Outlook
PST/OST file limitations in earlier versions, etc...but I never see any
details regarding mailbox size vs performance, except some MS documents
related to mailbox size limits for calculation of store size/migrations...

My constant struggle is trying to get our business community to follow some
sort of guidelines in regards to mailbox size, number of email items, etc...
I've read a lot of emails saying "you can have it as large as you'd like",
but at some point there has to be some sort of guidelines to keep things
usable and keep performance balanced for the entire exchange platform.

I have users with 500 items and 50mb stores, and others with 8gb of storage
and 140,000 emails. One user kept it all in their inbox root... Obviously
someone with 140,000 emails in their root inbox is going to have Outlook
slowness opening up and sorting data and drag down the performance of others
by taxing the server with requests. However, I never have any solid
documentation that states "Guess what - you can buy a quad processor Xeon
and you're Outlook would still be slow... you have too much mail". So the
business owners continue to say "make it work, I want to keep
everything...and can you take off my 5mb file attachment size limitation so
I can send some 20mb jpegs"... you know how it goes... I'm not expecting
something that cut and dry, necessarily...just something that I can put
together enough of an logical plan to keep peace and order (for both users
and engineers!)

Any assistance is appreciated...
Pete


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Mail collecting in Users Mailbox but not appearing in outlook client
    ... What do you mean when you say Outlook Express works? ... Do you have webmail access to a POP mailbox? ... I had previously copied my old emails to the Outlook ... SMTP Store Driver: Submitted message to MTA ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: emails disappearing
    ... What happens if you turn off Cached Mode in Outlook? ... idea about the archive folder seams a good idea the only problem is if you ... for this user i& i still lose emails ... The SBS has its limitations on mailbox sizes. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: Oulook 2003 connects to exchange but no mail
    ... The Message tracking center shows only a couple of emails for today. ... set for messages to be delivered to a PST file. ... messages are in the PST but she's looking for them in the mailbox. ... Then go to the Folder List in Outlook, ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: emails disappearing
    ... using OWA you can see the emails that exchange says are there is but not the ... rule will permanently delete messages without him logging into Outlook, ... Exchange isn't logging any errors in the event logs, ... way to check his exchange mailbox as they appear to leave here then ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Exchange 2003/Outlook 2003 User Mailbox setup HOW-TO
    ... Please direct me to some documentation on how to set up a mailbox for an existing user, and how to configure Outlook 2003 on the client side to access this mailbox. ...
    (microsoft.public.exchange.setup)