How/Where store a LOT of Outlook Items? Mailbox or Folder?

[Pieter]

Hi,

My document-management-application must store the emails (using Outlook
2003) of the users to a common folder, and a link is added in a database.
From an other application these emails can be opened.

I'm now using a public MailBox on our Exchange (2000, in some months 2003)
server, and I use the StoreID and EntryID of the OutlookItems and Folder to
get the right Mail and open it.

The only problem is: after 4 months of use, the public mailbox takes
alreaddy 100 Megabytes.

So my questions are:
- Won't I get a performance-problem in the future when the public mailbox is
growing? It will be used more intensively soon, so I think it will grow evey
year with 1 giga...
- Doesn't such a big mailbox doesn't get corrupted or
I-don't-know-what-can-happens with soemthing like that?
- Should I better chose another way of storing the items? Just on a
networkshare saving all the emails ass *.msg-files? Or any better idea? But
won't that give less performance?

Any help, hints, links, experiences would be really appreciated!

Thanks a lot in advance,

Pieter

 

[Nuevo]

100MB is not a problem and even growing to 1Gb while not ideal should cause
no problems. I would not recommend anything over 2GB so you have some
breathing room. You need an effective way to archive the mail in order to
prevent the growth. If this is not possible then you need to consider the
viability of using a different mailbox once a certain size is reached.

Nue

 

[Pieter]

Thanks for the info. And you don't have any idea of what should be the
better solution?
- Give them every year a new Mailbox? And after 5 years they have 5 extra
mailboxes that loads etc...
- Save all the mails as *.msg in a Fodler somewhere on a server?
- Write the emails to a database? (sql server)
- ...?

 

[Nuevo]

I would not save them as .msg. That is just not a good approach. Writing
emails to a database is also going to be tricky because of attachments.

How long do you need to retain these emails?

I would suggest that you set a size limit on the mailbox, say 500MB. Once it
reaches that limit you can create another mailbox. Once your retention
period is over delete the old mailboxes after backing up of course.

The best option if it works in your situation is to use an Email archiving
product like Enterprise Vault or EmailXtender.

Nue

 

[Pieter]

I would not save them as .msg. That is just not a good approach. Writing
emails to a database is also going to be tricky because of attachments.

Well, I do have to admit that personally I prefer to have them in MailBoxes:
users can do searches on them etc like they normally do with emails etc.
And about the writing to the database: Isn't there a way to kind of write
them as a binery stream to a database-field?

How long do you need to retain these emails?

At least 3-4 years, but it will be in some case 5-10 years at least...

The best option if it works in your situation is to use an Email archiving
product like Enterprise Vault or EmailXtender.

I'm gonna take a look at them, thanks!

 

[Andy David - MVP]

Hi,

My document-management-application must store the emails (using Outlook
2003) of the users to a common folder, and a link is added in a database.
From an other application these emails can be opened.

I'm now using a public MailBox on our Exchange (2000, in some months 2003)
server, and I use the StoreID and EntryID of the OutlookItems and Folder to
get the right Mail and open it.

The only problem is: after 4 months of use, the public mailbox takes
alreaddy 100 Megabytes.

So my questions are:
- Won't I get a performance-problem in the future when the public mailbox is
growing? It will be used more intensively soon, so I think it will grow evey
year with 1 giga...
- Doesn't such a big mailbox doesn't get corrupted or
I-don't-know-what-can-happens with soemthing like that?
- Should I better chose another way of storing the items? Just on a
networkshare saving all the emails ass *.msg-files? Or any better idea? But
won't that give less performance?

Any help, hints, links, experiences would be really appreciated!

Thanks a lot in advance,

Pieter

The size of the mailbox isnt the problem, its the item count.
http://209.34.241.68/exchange/archive/2005/03/14/395229.aspx

You may want to look at mailbox manager or a scripted exmerge job to
keep the number of items in check if you begin to see performance
problems.