Significant update to the Mailbox Server Role Storage Requirements Calculator - v 14.7
Published Jun 12 2008 03:30 PM 1,089 Views

Please go to our Mailbox Server Role Storage Requirements Calculator updates tracking page to see what is in this new version! There are a lot of usability improvements as well as a whole new section on Storage Design.

A blog post explaining the calculator (updated for this new version) is here and the calculator can be downloaded from here.

Comments welcome!

- Ross Smith IV

13 Comments
Not applicable
I've just submitted a big project proposal using the last version of the calculator.  I hope this new version doesn't make me a liar!
Also, I've used system center capacity planner, and the numbers are very different from this spreadsheet.  You need to get those two teams in a room to hammer out their differences!
Not applicable
Hi Mike,

Thanks for the feedback.  

We worked closely with the SCCP team during its development to ensure that it aligned with our guidance.  The SCCP does use certain defaults that are different than the calculator's so that could be the difference. In particular, SCCP sizes storage for Exchange Server 2007 with the following criteria:

- The log disk is sized for daily incremental and weekly full backups.
- The log disk is sized to allow the possibility of one backup failure, storing up to two days of log files.
- The log disk is sized to allow up to 5 percent of mailboxes to be moved between servers per week.
- Capacity Planner does not model a dedicated restore logical unit number (LUN).
- The database drive is sized by adding 5 percent additional space for content indexing.
- The Exchange Server 2007 database LUN capacity is sized with 20 percent safety overhead to account for other data that resides in the database that is not necessarily seen when calculating mailbox sizes and white space.

Hopes this information helps.

Ross
Not applicable
Thanks for the response.  I'm not actually sure what the differences were, it was a while ago I threw it out and opted for the much easier to understand calculator.  

You listing the criteria here is very helpful.  I wish to request you improve the sccp tool to include blurbs or links to justifications for its actions.  I ended up with huge server counts and there was no real way to understand how it got to the numbers it did.  

It seems the nature of these two tools are overlapping, which means there is always going to be a bit of a variance.  Why both?  If they aren't exactly in sync it makes things confusing.
Not applicable
Nice job, Ross, this is a great update to the tool!
Not applicable
This, my friends, is a butt-kickin' update!  I absolutely love the new page with the LUN options.  Bravo!
Not applicable
For the collectlogs.vbs script, can I run this on my Exchange 2003 server and then just multiply the number of logs by 5 (per hour).
For planning my migration to 2007 for CCR?
Not applicable
I think as far as the calculator is concerned is it uses the 2003 log #s, so you shouldn't have to multiply it.
Not applicable
Thanks for the reply Bday,
This is the output from running the script one time:
e00.chk 6/13/2008 5:15:53 AM
e00.log 6/12/2008 1:32:27 PM
e0000001.log 4/29/2008 5:42:08 PM
e0000002.log 5/1/2008 5:10:31 AM
e0000003.log 5/7/2008 5:04:50 AM
e0000004.log 5/23/2008 5:19:43 AM
e0000005.log 5/31/2008 2:38:09 PM
e0000006.log 6/3/2008 4:00:45 AM
e0000007.log 6/4/2008 5:48:02 PM
e0000008.log 6/7/2008 5:09:19 AM
e0000009.log 6/9/2008 5:01:20 AM
e000000a.log 6/11/2008 1:00:19 AM
e000000b.log 6/12/2008 1:32:27 PM

It pretty much mimics what is in the directory, it seems like I would need to multiply this by 5 to get an accurate account to put into the Storage Calc
Not applicable
Hi Steve,

Essentially you can take that data and open it in Excel and then use Excel's ability to remove duplicate items to remove the duplicates.  Then all you really need to do is sum up hte number of logs generated for each hour you collected.  That will tell you the number of logs generated for the storage group in question for that hour.

Hope this helps,

Ross
Not applicable
Also bday is correct, you do not need to multiply by 5.  We simply use the data inputted here to determine the percentage of logs generated for each hour and then multiply that percentage by the amount of logs we calculate you will generate in the Exchange 2007 environment.

Ross
Not applicable
Hey Mike,

You can use the Model Editor in SCCP to adjust items like disk and server counts if you find them off.  the information I mentioned should have been included in SCCP's help, but I have not verified that at this time.

Ross
Not applicable
Hey Ross,

Thanks for the update but still the MSG size says 50kb which is very low. I know a large org like MS will have 50-57kb but small org's and mostly in Asia will have somewhere around Avg:150kb

Check the difference between a 50kb and 150kb msg size org - it's huge !!! What do you think ? should we promote 50kb as in MS ?
Not applicable
Hi Ruwan,

Thanks for the feedback.  Yes we are evaluating how we can improve the guidance and calculations when larger message sizes are involved in the design.

Ross
Version history
Last update:
‎Jul 01 2019 03:38 PM
Updated by: