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CBurch22

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Moving from POP to Exchange

Currently, our sister company has email hosted by EarthLink. I'm looking for instructions on how to migrate users from POP email to our  Exchange.  Because the PST files are so big, we do not want to import PST to exchange. Was wondering if we can leave PST file as they are... as archive\personal folders?

My plan was to add domain as alias on the exchange, create users, and point mx records to our exchange. Then go to each workstation and configure Outlook to point to exchange.  Is this correct?
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Excalibur Communications
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Avatar of Simon Butler (Sembee)
How big are these PST files?
PST files break, they are very fragile and a pain to backup.
They would be a lot better off inside Exchange, where you can back them up, they can be searched and are generally better off.

Simon.
I`m guessing the PST`s would be referred to as an archive and so would not grow any further?
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CBurch22

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Some PST files are over 10GB. I'm not sure the exchange will handle? Only 32GB of memory on the exchange server. Adding 80  users to exchange that already has 150+ users.
Merge them into Exchange and remove all PST's from user machine. Best to disable it via GPO.
32 GB of memory is plenty for your server. The question is how much disk space do you have? As pointed out by Simon, those PSTs are going to be a pain. I'm certain you will find having to manage them a complete waste of time later too. Putting these in Exchange will be less costly in the long run even if you have to add a little storage to your current server to make it happen.
10gb PST files? I thought you said they were large.

PST files store all content in 3 formats, therefore when imported in to Exchange the actual size will be anything between half and a third of that size.

The size of the database and the amount of memory on a server have no real connection. 32gb of RAM would be fine for well over double the number of users you are talking about.

Therefore my previous recommendation still stands - import them in to Exchange.

Simon.
What version of Exchange is this? If 2013, then Ross Smith will tell you that Exchange can easily handle 100GB mailboxes.