THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS DIVA

I never understood why people seem to always attack XP's user interface when thy badmouth it. If you don't like "bliss" then turn off themes for crying out load. XP is way more media friendly than 2k, and overall XP is 2k, just a little step up, so it's not like it's really any different under the hood than 2k. If you don't like XP, that's fine, but give liegitimate reasons, not citing the candy style theme as your main dislike.

*gets off soapbox..

Thanks Susan for a really great site by the way, it's helped out quite a bit!

okay, I just reread the post, I see the author is comparing SBS2003 to the candyish of XP. In no way do I see how sbs is candyish...

Hey... I wanted to make a comment from a MS Partner who has been burned by SBS. Microsoft recommends that users move from PST files to an Exchange server if they want their e-mail backed up. Great, so I put an SBS server in for a 25 user network to solve this problem. Oh wait... says Microsoft. If you want to store your mail in our Exchange server, you're out of luck cause you only get 16-gig of space under ALL versions of SBS. However, if you'd like to have 2TB of storage space, you can fork out $3-4k for the "Enterprise" version of Exchange. I don't need 2TB of space.. but 500-700gig would sure be nice for an office of 25 people. Mail users these days keep multiple GIG of e-mail storage ONLINE and actually need it (so archiving is NOT the solution). At 16 gig, this limit restricts each uers (of 25 users) to 640mb each. By todays standards, that's NOTHING!. Why would they expand the PST limit on Outlook 2003 (which was way over due!) but leave Exchange stuck at NT4 space standards. I can answer that.. they want to RAPE the small business guy who gets roped into using and depending on exchange but runs out of space. It's not about product capabilities but rather about money an licenses! Such CRAP! I won't be selling any more SBS for this reason! It's a bait and switch tactic!

Scott

Dude, then you can't sell any Exchange "Standard" to anyone You do realize that that's the default storage space in "normal" exchange?

And YES DUDE we've made our voice heard about this issue too!

Any word on whether SBS SP1 will have increased the Exchange storage limit. Honestly I haven't run into this problem with my customers but I do need to ask what the solution would be if my customers did hit the limit. Do they print out GBs of e-mails to free it up? Is there a way to create some type of folder off of Exchange and move mail there and at the same time have it easily read?

Email systems have been used as a pseudo filing system by individuals for several reasons among them users do not have a structure they can trust with ease of retrieval setup correctly within their file system.

Addressing those issues at the file system level would alleviate the email problem. Users should be actively encouraged to store all relevent company based correspondence in the file system rather than their mail folders. Whats left is not always that important to the company.

Not all users have the same need for mail storage, not all users have the same habits, some people are just collectors. It should be administered not just left to chance.

What sort of TBU are you guys using, those wanting 600GIG of storage? This must be some small business.

640mb of storage is good for any normal person as long as they mantain their email. If they organize things and delete bad email and that 640 should be good. If not then you must be doing alot of business then the excahnge enterprise shouldn't be that far off. And for a 25 person office I would recommend that anyway if everone uses the server. Although SBS can handle it the ease of standard for that many people makes more sense. and the load balancing because with standard you can have multiple domains. So your accounting could have it's own subdomain for security and distribution.

No, 640 megs is NOT reasonable for many users. In such meadia-heavy environements where you can't teach every associate you deal with how to use FTP, emails in the 10-50 meg size can very rapidly eat up a 640 meg mailbox. I have had users that would have 1.5+ gigs of ACTIVE projects in their mailbox, and they cleaned themselves out regularly.

I currently em dealing with the frustration of SBS with a company that is growing beyond the limits of it. There is no graceful way to grow beyond a single SBS server without completely blowing it away and putting regular Server 2k3 on there. Terribly annoying.

All this ping-ponging makes me sick. I have just upgraded a client to SBS 2003 after 3 painful years of SBS2000. The problem I now face is that the client wants a blackberry installation. The blackberry server has to be installed on a separate box which has to be on a member server in the domain. We are screwed. I thought I had done my homework, I had checked to see if SBS2003 supported more than one server, the MS propaganda (pre sales tech support) indicated that it did, AND it was a selling point! Here is another observation for people wanting an alternative. Over the past 4 Years i have had two particular clients with the same needs and user counts. One Running MS SBS and the running Novell' s equivalent. Both just upgraded to their respective latest OS. The Client with the Novell setup i am onsite 2 or 3 times a month, the MS setup at the very least once a week, with remote support on top of that.

And another thing I have found out from reading this Post is that with my 7 users already up to 9Gb of email storage already used, this next time next year they wont be able to send and receive email! What a great product!

Ahh well more expense for the client, more money for me, I should be pleased? No, I am in fact, embarrassed.

It CAN have a separate server...where are you reading it can't?

And soon Exchange will go to 75 gigs!!!!! with Exchange 2003 sp2