Without giving too much background I need to build a couple of Exchange 2003 Enterprise Servers for around 4000 users. Is has been requested that I present all the available Storage Groups and Mailboxes stores. So that is 40 mailbox stores for 4000 users. The normal questions of design (mailbox sizes, message volume, I/O etc) do not specifically apply here at this point in time The plan would be to potentially present two LUNs (one to each server) to house the DBs. So that would be 20 edbs & stms per LUN. (Transactions logs on seperate LUNs of course, but worth noting only one per server). Simply put are there any decent articles (preferably Microsoft ones) to justify my belief that presenting all the mailbox stores is overkill. (The storage groups I accept as that can be seen as standard "best" practise on 2003 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;890699) Or would people argue is doesn't make a difference and I should just present all the mailbox stores? Obviously there are benefits (if maintained properly) from smaller DBs sizes etc. Help, comments, expirence, ideas would be gratefully accepted. Thank you

Hello, Please go this article it will help u -- Comparison between Exchange Server 2003 Standard Edition and Exchange Server 2003 Enterprise Edition http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822440 How to configure storage groups in Exchange Server 2003 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3ben-us%3b890699 Exchange 2007 Store Related Changes and Improvements http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Exchange-2007-Store-Related-Changes-Improvements.html IF u have number of users in your exchange organization in that case it is recommended that u should create a multiple Storage group and divide the users on them, so if any store is down, others will not affect and also it will help u to ran Esutil commands on dismounted store.MicroSoft Exchange Admin. & Connector EXCHANGE2010, MCSE, MCTS, MCSA MESSAGING, CCNA & GNIIT

40 mailbox stores for 4000 users is very good shape for me ! Just you have to build up two Exchange 2003 ENT server with all DB occupied. PKT has provided you to much informstion above. Have you see below article of MSEXchange. http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Art-Science-Sizing-Exchange-2003-Part3.html How to Calculate Your Disk I/O Requirements: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb125019(EXCHG.65).aspxAnil

Thank you for the response. I would agree that PKT_'s response was a little too simplistic for my needs here, but thank you for that reply. Fortunately I do have a pretty good understanding of Exchange already. The sizing calculator way is how I would normally look at this. If I know the rough volume of data I would then look at presenting enough mailbox stores to size then at aroung 60GB. That was I have 55% (or so) growth factor to the 100Gb "limit". The client just wants us to present the lot, with no "Exchange sizing" logic behind it. I assume from your response then that their are no issues with just presenting all available mailbox stores and I should take the view of just keeping all the DBs small? If the client then needs more we just present more mailbox servers to them. What I really hoped for from the post was a link to any article that discussed when (and how in design terms) to present additional mailbox stores. I guess what I was chasing does not exist in the format I sort (or is not dierctly relevant) and I should just go back to normal Exchange design basics Thank you