First, I’d like to apologize in advance to all who might complain that this isn’t the place to do this, but after having been told that the maximum size of a mailbox should be 100MB and that “large mailboxes are not really supported” by Lotus, I need to know……
What is the average and maximum size of the mailboxes on your server?
I’ll go first.
Avg = 1GB
Max = 4GB
With lots in the 1.5 - 2GB range.
Thanks.
Oh, and by the way, I’ve never had problems with the 4GB mailbox.
Oh and one more thing, please don’t bother telling me that my users need to archive their mail or ask “Do they really need a mailbox that big?”. They think they do.
Thanks again.
Subject: Just how big are YOUR mailboxes?
Actually, what would be even more interesting is a survey of the following:
How many active users/mail files?
Spread across how many servers?
Spec of servers? (single/dual/quad CPU/HT, disk space)
OS & Domino version?
Avg Size of mail DB?
Max size of mail DB?
Total amount of data including any archives on your servers? (assuming you archive to the same server)?
How do you think the servers perform with this load and what issues do you face.
Subject: RE: Just how big are YOUR mailboxes?
We had to enforce a 150MB quota for all users except top management, due to server disk space limitations.Max size of the big boss’ mail file is 700MB.
People can archive to a different server where the size of the biggest archive db is actually 1.5GB
Subject: Just how big are YOUR mailboxes?
500MB Quota limit / 1GB for Mail Hogs. Quota’s were implemented when we did DWA for all users - we have all mailboxes clustered to a seperate Domino 7 / SUSE 9.x box for performance testing of iNotes and replicating the 400+GB of mail files across would have been a bear.
Automatic server based archiving every 90 days - have archive files hitting 10GB
Never had to restore a mail file for any reason in 6 years
Subject: RE: Just how big are YOUR mailboxes?
For ANY reason? You mean your people understand that deleting important messages (like, you know, the one with the $2G contract details in it) is a bad thing? We-e-e-eird.
Subject: RE: Just how big are YOUR mailboxes?
we sneak under Sarb-Ox so not technically an issue, however that said, the majority of our users don’t delete anything … we have server maintenance notices from 1997 in the odd mailbox. They just let the auto-archiving kick in every Saturday and voila … they are back in Quota.
500MB is a blessing for our guys - they come from a large Fortune 500 Exchange house, where the mailbox quote is 10mb and the max mail size is 1mb. It must be like the 60’s and free love from them to have unlimited files.
Subject: Just how big are YOUR mailboxes?
Average (mean) 200 MBMaximum 2.8 GB
100 MB maximum? Wouldn’t work here.
Subject: RE: Just how big are YOUR mailboxes?
For R5 users we have 40MB quotas unless the user can demonstrate a business requirement to have a 100MB quota.
When users migrate to Notes 6 we increase their quotas to 60MB and exceptions to 120MB because of the increased template size.
Looks like I’m in the minority here… 
Subject: RE: Just how big are YOUR mailboxes?
110mb, 300mb and 1gb quotas depending on role
one thing we did add to the template was a display to show usage and quota size so the users knew where they were up to.
Subject: Just how big are YOUR mailboxes?
The customer where I am now the quotas are 15Mb (<5%), 100Mb (80%), 250Mb (10%) and unlimited (5-10%). The largest mail database is around 500Mb. We only count the actually mail sizes and not the size of the mail file.
Personally my biggest personal mailfile is 31Mb. I dislike having big mail files.
Hans Haraldsen
Subject: RE: Just how big are YOUR mailboxes?
When we were running 4.6 our mail quotas were set to 100MB for everyone. On r6, the quotas are set to 175.
We are lucky in that the important people (particularly the president/CEO) can’t understand why someone would need a mail file larger than like 50MB.
This guy keeps his around 20MB, never saves anything, and only uses the All Documents view. If he needs an email that’s delete, he either gets the person who sent it to him to resend it, or gets IT to restore it from tape
Subject: RE: Just how big are YOUR mailboxes?
160MB Avg4.1GB Max
974 Total Mail Files
338 Under 10MB (34.7%)
305 10MB-100MB (31.3%)
244 100MB-500MB (25%)
78 500MB-2GB (8%)
9 2GB-4.1GB (1%)
However, that 1% of users are consuming over 15% of mail storage. And the 34.7% of users under 10MB are consuming under 1% of mail storage!
There are some iSeries Redbooks stating that mail files over 700MB begin seeing performance degradation. And also the number of documents in your $Inbox affects performance.
Subject: [duplicate - sorry]
Subject: Just how big are YOUR mailboxes?
For more info:
Largest mail file 2.8GB
Average around 600MB
Wouldn’t be able to enforce limits, it’s all about the users:)
Dan
Subject: Just how big are YOUR mailboxes?
“…but after having been told that the maximum size of a mailbox should be 100MB and that “large mailboxes are not really supported” by Lotus, I need to know……”
Who told you this? Was it an IBM representative? Because if so, you need to email that person’s name to Ed Brill. If it’s not a firing offense, it’s at least a take-em-out-back-and-dress-em-down offense.
You sure it wasn’t someone from Microsoft?
For the record, even in Notes 2, you could easily handle a mail file over 100MB. (I didn’t work with Notes 1.) Today, NSFs are limited only by the operating system. I’ve regularly worked with mail files exceeding 6GB.
Now, that being said, if you are encountering performance problems (and not being able to complete backups of data in a reasonable time counts as a performance problem) you really should look into policy-driven cross-server archiving. This can be a great way to archive mail from a 24/7 supported server to a lower-SLA server that you can take offline for maintenance. The user experience for the archive is still quite nice – the only downside at present being that the archive must be searched separately.
But seriously, whoever told you that needs to be slapped down hard.
Subject: RE: Just how big are YOUR mailboxes?
Hey Nathan,
I refer you (as I was refered to) TEchnote 7003251. Yes it was from and IBM representative.
I agree with your comments.
Subject: WHICH TechNote ?
Wonder why thats not with all the other TechNotes ? Its almost like…there’s no such one…like my friend Stan suggested…
Subject: RE: Just how big are YOUR mailboxes?
I was told by Lotus support in May 1999 when we implemented R5 on an AS/400 that mail files should be under 100MB. That was nearly six years ago and I don’t have anyone’s name, but that led to us implementing 75MB quotas, which we increased to 150MB when we upgraded to ND6.
To put this in context, at the time we were having an issue where two or three times a week all our mail files over 200MB went toes up and had to be restored from backup. Even at 100MB we were having frequent corruptions so we had to bring them down to 75MB to make the corruptions stop. I spent most of May 1999 on the phone with Lotus and/or IBM because of this problem so I remember it very well.
I had AS/400, Domino for AS/400, and on site hardware tech, and someone from “development” involved in this problem. If you want to slap someone down hard you better take a few days because it’s going to be a lot of people and your hand is going to get sore.
In all seriousness, I would like to see an official statement from Lotus on this subject. Obviously different people have various personal experiences but I have not been able to find anything that says “this is what Lotus recommends”. At this point I don’t know if I am following the unwritten guidelines or not, I just know I’m extremely hesitant to trust Notes with large NSF’s of any type because of my own prior experience.
– Charles
Subject: RE: Just how big are YOUR mailboxes?
Thanks for your response Charles…I’m not looking to “slap anybody down”. Maybe notes isn’t really the best messaging platform. You can look at the Technote 7003251 that I was sent suggesting 100MB and noting that corruption is inevitable…you draw the conclusion.
