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From: Rich Matheisen [MVP] on 7 Jul 2006 20:11
CasinoSA <CasinoSA(a)discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>What is the ideal hardware setup for a stand alone Exchange server for <500
>users?

You'll get LOTS of opinions on that question, but are you really
interested in the _ideal_ set up or just in an adequate one? The
difference can be costly for such a small number of users.

But even before you start looking for ideal vs. adequate, how about
defining the workload those 500 mailboxes are expected to generate?
How may public folders? How much e-mail from/to the Internet? What AV
software load? What about anything else that runs on the machine?

Just a rough config:

64-bit hardware (no sense buying 32-bit stuff any more).
Two CPUs (hyperthreaded/dual-core if you like). Make 'em Xeon's 3GHz.
(slower if you want to save money, Exchange isn't a CPU hog).
2 GB RAM (4 GB is better).
RAID1 for O/S.
RAID 1 for transaction log files.
RAID 0+1 for databases.

You can keep the message tracking log files and mailroot and the other
stuff on the O/S disk.

--
Rich Matheisen
MCSE+I, Exchange MVP
MS Exchange FAQ at http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm
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