Re: Public Folder Limits FAQ?


"Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]" <gwdibble@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:OI9GS1cTGHA.6048@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Can you point to a source that confirms that? I'd be happy to be proved
wrong on this, but I'm just as sure as I can be that there is no
hard-coded mailbox size limit in Exchange Server. I've tried hard to find
anything indicating to the contrary, and as far as I can see, you could
have a single mailbox at the size of the Information Store database limit
of 75 GB.

There is no default/hardcoded mailbox or PF store quota setting in
Exchange....SBS may
put one in, but Exchange doesn't.

Perhaps Jonathan is referring to the fact that one cannot manually specify a
quota *larger* than 2GB? If so, this is well known & has been a
bug^H^H^H^H^feature for years.

I believe there's a registry hack to resolve it, but I don't recall it
offhand (I use smaller quotas anyway) - someone in
microsoft.public.exchange.admin is sure to have the answer handy.




"Jonathan Davey" <me@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%23UuEv6aTGHA.5496@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Dave,

Im talking about the storage mailbox limit on exchange per user. Each
user has a hardcoded storage limit of around 2Gb.

"Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]" <gwdibble@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
message news:eMRcqyFTGHA.4900@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I have never heard of a hard-coded 2 gb mailbox limit. You don't have to
set a mailbox limit at all, so I guess theoretically you could have an
Exchange Standard with one 75 GB mailbox. Where specifically are you
setting it that it won't allow a value over 2 GB?

Are you thinking of the 2 GB limit for ANSI PST files? Pre-Outlook
2003, there was an effective limit of 2 GB on Outlook if using a PST.
It didn't apply to server mailboxes, and Outlook 2003 can use Unicode
PST and OST files, so that limit no longer applies unless you have a
pre-2003 PST or OST on the client PC.


"Jonathan Davey" <me@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ecM3CQ1SGHA.4976@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Wow! Dave how did u do that? SP2 still retains the user-mailbox limit
of ~2Gb and doesnt allow me to exceed this.
Have you hacked the registry or something??

"Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]" <gwdibble@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
message news:OZPdDTTSGHA.224@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
No clue. I just set mine to 300,000 to test it, and it allowed me to
use that. Are you making this setting in the properties of the
Mailbox Store under First Storage Group?

The only thing I can think of is that I just installed SP2 last week.
Are you on a prior SP?

IMO if you're going to set a limit that high, I'd just not set it at
all. You can easily monitor mailbox size and request action from users
who seem excessive. I realize everyone's situation is different, but
I don't control mailbox size at all. I have one user who's never
deleted an item AFAIK, and her mailbox is just over a GB.


"Jonathan Davey" <me@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:OU8hQXOSGHA.4616@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Thats weird Dave, so why cant I set global mailbox limit greater than
200000 then?

"Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]" <gwdibble@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
message news:uaDDxBFSGHA.4456@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
There are two separate stores, mailbox and public. Each can be 75
GB max. You can set mailbox quotas to limit users to a certain
mailbox size if you wish, but there are no hard coded limits on the
size of individual mailboxes or public folders that I've ever heard
of. There's no cumulative limit unless you impose one on mailboxes,
in which case the user would have to stay under the mailbox size
limit. But public folders would not count against the mailbox
quota - they're completely separate information stores.

Outlook 2003 running in Unicode mode can have a very large OST. I
believe around 20 GB is the maximum recommended size. 2 GB is the
limit for the older ANSI files used by previous Outlook versions.
You don't have to cache public folders - by default those appearing
in the Public Folder Favorites are cached, but you don't have to do
that if you don't want to.

The issue I have with the large public folder is caused solely by
the fact that it is a single folder holding tens of thousands of
items. If I reduced the number of items in the folder, performance
would be better. I have a subfolder of my Inbox that contains around
20,000 items. Performance on that folder is noticeably slower than
it is with smaller folders. If I divided those items into four
subfolders instead of one, I wouldn't have any performance issues,
even though I'd still have all 20,000 items in subfolders of my
Inbox. When I say performance, I mean scrolling, sorting, and
searching. Within reason, this does not relate to total PF or
mailbox size, it's just the number of items in the single folder.

Just to clarify, the issue is number of items. I would expect a
folder with 200 e-mails each with a 5 MB attachment to perform about
the same as a folder with 200 attachment-free e-mails. But a folder
with the same 2 GB size in messages without attachments would be
just about unusable because of the huge number of items involved.

It's not cache related - the folder with the 20,000 items is cached
and performs a little slowly. The PF is not cached, but I wouldn't
suspect it to perform any better if it was. IMO the performance
benefits of caching in an SBS sized network are minimal at best.
Unlike in a big enterprise, I suspect that most of our available
network bandwidth in the SBS world is sitting around idly anyway.
And I doubt my local desktop's HD can get the data to my screen much
faster than 15K SCSI server drives on a server with caching hardware
raid and 4 GB RAM.

If you are currently using Outlook 2003 in standalone mode, I can't
think of any limitations you will experience by going to Exchange.
If Exchange were less functional than standalone Outlook, why would
people buy it?


"Jonathan Davey" <me@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%23OFeYjBSGHA.3192@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Thanks,

So when we say "75Gb" we mean TOTAL mail/folder EXCHANGE/SERVER
storage in any event. Rather than say /mailuser or /publicfolder.

Presumably 2Gb is about the "right" max limit for a
"mailbox-username" and persumably 2gb would be (and as intimated)
the max for a public folder.

But im still in the dark, are we saying 2Gb for THE PUBLIC folder
including subfolders? Or can each sub-folder be say 2Gb in its own
right?

Or do we consider the entire group..........

I mean mailbox-username PLUS(+) public folder must be less than 2Gb
for any given user account (connection).

My reasoning being that there is a "network limit" to each
connection in exchange (connection = user) where folder sizes are
cumalitive and in reality there is no differentiation between
syncing a public folder items and a mailbox-user items; if you see
what I mean?


Sorry to be so dumb, but I need to get this right for everything to
work.

Sorry if i confused with "personal" and "mailbox-user" I did
actually mean OST and not PST. Which kinda begs the question why
Dave struggles with a 1.5Gb OST previewing... presumably its cached
isnt it?

I do use a PST folder, which is 2.5Gb and it happily previews,
sorts, searches with no difficulty. Im on a 10yr project in
construction where many emails are ~10mb in size.

I want to move completely to Exchange and OST, hence the questions
regarding limits etc.

As I recall Exchange has a hard limit per mailbox of ~2Gb
regardless of the 75Gb uplift! The uplift presumably allows more
mailbox-users rather than larger mailboxes?? And again I believe
the 2Gb limit applys to Public Folders also...... I seem to have
gone full circle!?!


"Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]" <gwdibble@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
in message news:%23MwnoN4RGHA.1948@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
As Susan says, the storage limit is 75 GB. However, there are
practical limits based on performance. I have a 1.5 GB public
folder that archives a bunch of e-mails we never use for anything.
Performance on that folder is absolutely horrible - Outlook takes
forever to display the contents of the folder. Forget about
sorting or searching. I also have a folder of about 22 MB
containing around 3000 contacts in a custom form. There is no
performance issue on that folder whatsoever.

So depending on what you want to do, you'll have to experiment and
see how you make out. You can always subdivide folder contents,
or find a way to get the items into SQL - maybe with SharePoint.

BTW, my SBS is running on brand new hardware with a dual core and
4 gb ram - performance of huge public folders is not something you
can solve with hardware.


"Jonathan Davey" <me@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:u%237S%23X1RGHA.5108@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Are there limits to Public Folders? Like the 2gb limit on
personal folders?

Can anyone point me to a good QA resource for public folders.

Thanks

Jonathan






















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