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Upgrading from Outlook POP3 to Exchange


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Hi,

We are currently using a POP3 based solution in our offices. The PST files are well over 5gb each and are causing performance issues for our users. We are looking to implement an exchange solution and was wondering if it is possible to merge the PST files from the POP3 outlook file to the exchange server.

We already have user@ourdomain.com once we transfer over to exchange how can I make sure that emails sent to user@ourdomain.com comes to our exchange server rather than the web based email it currently goes to?

Thanks

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Are you using Exchange Server 2010 SP1?

Here is a manual way to do it! Importing a PST file into Exchange 2010 requires the use of the Exchange Management Shell (EMS) and lots of Powershell scripts and cmdlets.

Here is another guide, hope this helps!

And here is how to configure the size limit for both (.pst) and (.ost) files in Outlook 2010, Outlook 2007, and in Outlook 2003. This is an MS guide! Good luck with all this.

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I haven't started the process yet, still planning so at the moment we are not currently using Exchange, but we will use the latest one once we start. The 3rd link is broken, do you mind relinking it?

Thanks

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Hi,

We are currently using a POP3 based solution in our offices. The PST files are well over 5gb each and are causing performance issues for our users. We are looking to implement an exchange solution and was wondering if it is possible to merge the PST files from the POP3 outlook file to the exchange server.

We already have user@ourdomain.com once we transfer over to exchange how can I make sure that emails sent to user@ourdomain.com comes to our exchange server rather than the web based email it currently goes to?

Thanks

You are aware that the 5gb PST files wont actually be going anywhere when you migrate to Exchange...right? Only now they'll be OST files that are cached locally and just synched with the server, they'll still be 5gb.

What you should be doing is implementing an archive solution to get most of the 5g of mail out of their live mailbox. By letting mailboxes get to 5gb, it's a clear sign your users are doing ZERO housekeeping.

Don't get me wrong, there are big advantages to having Exchange... not least of which the elimination of having to backup the mail locally and having access to the mail history from any other PC. But Exchange alone is not going to help with performance when you continue to let your employees grow their mailboxes to 5gb in size.

At the company I work for, we start users off with 400mb quota as standard, and then increase them on request in 100mb increments to 1gb. After which we enable archiving that automatically sends mail over 1 year old to an archive mailbox. It also lets them archive mail newer than this manually. We also encourage our users to "detach" attachments from emails and store them somewhere more suitable (ie. cheaper).. so in other words you end up with files on a file server. Email quota is relatively expensive compared to some dumb disk space on a file server.

To answer your last point about how to ensure mails go to the exchange server in future, this will require changing your MX record on your domain to point to the address of your exchange server rather than your pop3 server. I'd also look into having a backup mail server of some sort that can collect mail if your primary exchange server is down, and then forward that collected email to your exchange server when it is back up. I use ZoneEdit.com for my DNS services, and that has a relatively cheap "Backup MX" option that does just that.

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Right okay - Forgive my lack of Exchange knowledge here, If we archieve the emails what happens? would the emails just be stored on the server or would this also by sync'd?

Yes, I am aware of the lack of house keeping. Ideally I would just like to delete them all and start again!

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Right okay - Forgive my lack of Exchange knowledge here, If we archieve the emails what happens? would the emails just be stored on the server or would this also by sync'd?

Yes, I am aware of the lack of house keeping. Ideally I would just like to delete them all and start again!

I am feeling to lazy to talk you through this so once again here is a nice guide/article to help you get along!

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Its okay - I'm still planning all of this, and need to learn exchange properly before even putting this live so not looking to make it live for 12 - 18 months until I am confident with exchange.

edit: That link is extremely useful. Thanks!

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