The mail server used does not define how the outgoing mails will be treated by receiving servers - the content and type of message determines if its Spam or not. You say that the messages will be follow-up after a service is provided so therefore the outgoing messages are based on "opt-in" addresses - although that does not guarantee they will pass through Spam filters.
Most professional grade mail servers can handle high volumes of traffic - it is the bandwidth available on the outgoing Internet connection that determines how many mails can be sent. For instance 100,000 4KB emails is around 3.5Gb (bits not bytes) - so if you have had a 10Mbps uplink (Internet) connection - it would typically take take around 6-7 hours to process and send all 100,000 emails. However, that also assumes there is no other traffic on the line.
I reality to achieve that sort of level of traffic (100,000+ outgoing messages a day which are almost bound to be bigger than 4KB each message ) you would need more bandwidth - something in the range of 60Mbps burst rate. Ideally you would split your servers in to incomming and outgoing - each with its own dedicated connection on to the Internet backbone.
Finally, in summation, you would be best to go with a "managed dedicated" server solution - where the servers are located in a large data-center with fibre connections on to the backbone. There are literally hundreds of suitable companies along these lines, and provided you tell them what you want to do, you should have a realtively trouble free set-up.
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by: grbladesPosted on 2007-09-14 at 14:30:11ID: 19895269
How long would you consider acceptible for these 100,000 emails to be delivered?
Are they small emails?
If you take any of the main MTAs such as Sendmail, Qmail, Exim and Postfix; they should all be capable of doing this. The governing factor is how many simultaneous emails you have being delivered at the same time and this will depend of available bandwidth and the capabilities of the server.
I normally deal with incoming servers but a good dual processor machine with lots of memory is capable of performing virus checks and spam checks on 30,000 mails per day. Just delivering mail without any of these checks is far easier.
My personal favourite would be a Linux machine using Postfix as the mail server but this is really just personal preference. Postfix comes with all the customisation you would want as standard. Other people here would probably recomend Qmail aswell.
The main issue I think is what you are going to use to actually generate all these emails.