Hi,

We are facing again pst-files, they keep growing, won't index search correctly and sometimes needs to be repaired :-(  Now we are looking for a better solution.
Customers of us are using Exchange 2010/2013 standard edition, so no Archive Database function available in the license :-(

The current (single) Exchange database is about 160GB (45 user company), the total of PST files is about 200GB. Now I want to import the PST files to the Exchange server.

The hardware config is HP DL380 Gen8 with 16 cores, 18GB (will be added extra soon) of ram and 4x600GB 10k raid5.

What is best solution? Add 1 or 2 extra Exchange databases and seperate the users over the 2-3 databases? Will email that is send to a distributiongroup (users in different Exchange databases) will be saved 3 times? Or is the software capable of creating pointers to different databases?

Thanks in advance!

Steven

Hi

Basically a DAG is a copy of the Active Database, so if you lose server 1 then the DB's will mount on server 2 and the users will carry on working provided the DAG is setup correctly etc.

if you have a 200GB or 100GB x2 DB's it doesnt matter, the biggest you can go is 2TB but for maintenance etc. keep the DB's sizing in a good state. If you see that 1 DB is growing you can create another 1 etc. but it all depends on the business requirements and needs.

To answers the last question, no, if a user is part of a DL they will get the mail once. The DAG is something the users dont know about except the Exchange Admin.

You also need to take into account that the more you put on the server the bigger the load. MS has a great calculate for Exchange 2010 and 2013 with regards to users and how many DB's to create etc.

Exchange 2010 & 2013 doesn't have single instance storage, which means that if an email is sent to 10 people, 10 copies of it get saved.

Hi Steven,

Why are you importing 200M PST file to mailboxe in the database? Do you want to move mailboxes by using PST file?

Generally, we can deploy DAG for high availability as what Edward van Biljon says. Then the database would be copied to other mailbox server in case of the mounted database is down. For more information about this, please refer to:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd979799(v=exchg.150).aspx

In Exchange server, when you send message to a distribution group which contains different mailbox from different database, the message would be stored in the mailbox respectively of different databases.

Regards,

Hi Steven,

You can find more details on the calculator Edward was talking about and download it from Exchange team blog at http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2013/05/14/released-exchange-2013-server-role-requirements-calculator.aspx

Exchange 2013 Standard Edition is limited to 5 mounted databases per server(Including Passive or Active). Keep this in mind while splitting the databases.

NOTE:- You can have additional RecoveryDBs, its not counted towards the limit.

Exchange 2013: editions and versions

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb232170%28v=exchg.150%29.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

Hello all,

First of all, sorry for the late feedback, due to holiday (Italy) I totally forgot "shame on me"  .

Thank you for your reply and explanation. We are serving 1-50 users clients. They have a single server (HP DL380/ML350) with 32-64GB and 4-8 internal 10K sas disks in raid5/50/10 and a 4-6 core cpu.
So using a DAG is no option. 

I will create multiple Databases ad try to keep them around 200GB each.

Kind regards,

Steven