Tips for Managing Attachments in Microsoft® Exchange

One of the major challenges of Exchange is managing attachment files.  These challenges are common with existing Exchange platforms and will remain when Exchange 2007 is released early next year.  We are all aware that users commonly share files as attachments for both work and pleasure and consume large amounts of Exchange storage.  Office documents such as Word and Excel files and especially PowerPoint files can easily exceed 1MB in size.  When stored in Exchange as attachments, these files can occupy as much as 80% of total Exchange storage.  Faced with the challenge of managing Exchange total storage, what Exchange settings and tools can help?  This following are some useful tips to help manage attachment files in Exchange 2000 and 2003 and also Exchange 2007 when it is released next year.

1. Mailbox quotas are probably the most common way to limit Exchange storage and the attachments they contain.   But be careful not too set the limits too small.  The reason is that mailbox quota limits can severely limit user productivity if set too low.  Exchange 2007 will bring some relief in this area.  Due to the new 64-bit architecture, Exchange 2007 will be able to handle mailboxes in the 1-2 GB size range.  A big improvement over the current 100-200MB size recommended with Exchange 2000/2003.
2. You can specify the maximum size of attachments in Exchange for sending and receiving.  The default setting is 10MB in the global Exchange settings and is probably a good limit to keep in place unless your organization has special needs that require a larger setting.
3. Exchange maintains a single copy of each attachment per Store, so for best results locate users that commonly share attachment files in the same Exchange Store.  Keep in mind that in Exchange 2000/2003 you have twenty maximum Stores to configure and in Exchange 2007 you have fifty maximum Stores.
4. Mailbox Manager Utility (Exchange 2003) has policy settings that can target messages by age and size for mailbox removal.  Any removal of e-mail needs to be approached very cautiously and with approval before action is taken; but remains useful for Store cleanup of messages that are excessively large.
5. Client Side Options: Personal Store Files (PST) provides local storage to preserve large attachments that would otherwise occupy space on Exchange Server.  You can use Outlook Rules to move new incoming messages by size to a PST or set an Archive Rule to move messages by age to archive folders contained in a PST.  But be careful when using .PST files because they can increase in size quickly and cause corruption problems and they raise the risk of losing critical intellectual property.

By careful selection of these settings, Exchange storage can be managed efficiently and the impact of attachment files can be minimized.  Besides using native Exchange tools, 3^rd-party tools exist that manage attachments by removing them from the Exchange Store and replacing them with a “short-cut”.  Attachments are managed on an email archive server and remain accessible to users via Outlook.  Several companies that provide such email archive tools are EMC, Symantec, CA and Mimosa Systems just to name a few.  You will find these products under the general email archive product heading.

Bob Spurzem

bspurzem@mimosasystems.com

Sr. Product Marketing Manager

Mimosa Systems, Inc.