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Exchange 2003: Splitting Public Folders between two servers

I have a client with an Exchange 2003 SP2 server with a 90GB Public Folder Store on a 100GB partition. As you can imagine, backups are a pain. Rather than throwing bigger hard drives at the issue, I'd like to know if I can install another Exchange 2003 server and split users and public folders between the two servers. Mailboxes of course won't be a problem, but can I have 45GB of Public Folder information on one server, and 45GB of Public Folder information on the other, and all users see both sets of Public Folders in Outlook 2003? If so, can someone point me to some documentation.

I've been searching for a while now but cannot find a definitive answer. Your help is appreciated!

Don

oldhammbc

yes and (sorry) no, The process of moving the public folders from one server to another should be fine, all you need to do is go into exchange system manager and right click on a public folder and click properties. In the screen that pops up you just need to go into replication and add the new server and remove the current sever for the folders you want to move.
The problem you will have is that the public folder database on the current server will not shrink, for that to happen you need to do an offline defrag of the database http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/techinfo/tips/defragmentation.asp the only problem is you will need more disk space than you have because the exchange server creates a brand new database in the process, but as the disk space is only used during the defrag you could use something like a USB hard disk.

here is the full step by step for defraging an exchange data base
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=328804

Cheers

Dave J

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