I have been busy this entire year fixing bad EX installs and 90% of the time it was because the server wasn't scoped properly. It really depends on how much email you get on a regular basis.

I personally wouldn't approve an EX install unless it was not only done on a dedicated server but the spindles need to be split up as well. Just indexing can peg the queued I/O to an average of 2 which is the recommended max from Microsoft. I've seen EX servers where everything was just installed to one drive on one backplane and the queued I/O was at an average of 15. It resulted in corrupted indexes and missing messages which turned it into a daily maintenance nightmare.

Your EX sales rep should be able to give you a spreadsheet that is created to size the server and the disks properly for your environment.

Now, if you are talking 10 users that get 100 messages a day or something like that, you may be able to get away with putting EX where every you like. The only place you CAN'T put EX is on an Exchange server. It will let you but Outlook is required and once you install Outlook on an Exchange server get ready to look for a new job.

Hi,

what server do you want to install it on? The EX installation cannot be done on an Exchange server... So yes, normally, EX servers are standalone... you might consider virtualization. That's okay in case you consider disk performance and volume sizes.

Regards,
Jochen.

Hi,

I strongly suggest a standalone server, with fast disks. If you want a great head start, sign up for the Disk Xtender and Email Xtender class training course. I can vouch for the quality of the training.