# setting up first exchange server



## blakcshadow (Nov 25, 2008)

First, sorry if I do not post enough information; I have almost no knowledge about this.

My boss has a hosted exchange from GoDaddy (who hosts his website). The problem is the hosted exchange is slowing down the network to a crawl. 

He wants me to set up a server for backups (which I've done before), a standard data storage server, and an exchange server.

My specs so far:

1TB for storage
500GB for backups (4 computers)
1.5GB RAM
2.0GHz processor
external 500GB (attached via USB) for backup of the server software

Q1: What is a good tutorial to set up an exchange server for four email accounts?

Q2: Will the exchange server keep the Calendars, Contacts, and emails current on a desktop, laptop, and iPhone?

Q3: How can I run them all on one physical server?


----------



## wlraider70 (Jun 1, 2009)

I don't have answer for your question, but have you looked into google apps?
they host for like $50 a year, all you have to do is prove you own the domain.


----------



## avisitor (Jul 13, 2008)

First, you should note that recent versions of Exchange are very demanding in terms of resources. Microsoft recommends each MB server have 4GB of RAM. If you want to combine roles, they recommend 10GB of RAM.

How is the hosted exchange affecting performance?


----------



## blakcshadow (Nov 25, 2008)

The hosted exchange causes lag on the network, slowing it down to a crawl. The password needs to be re-entered every time Outlook start, etc


----------



## Guldan (Jan 6, 2010)

1.5GB Ram? If email is important to your company I would upgrade this, also a 2.0ghz processor isn't impressive.

The exchange server holds all information regarding someones email account including contacts, calenders etc,. So if they moved computers or wanted to grab it online it would just pull everything from the server.

If I formatted my computer I could just reinstall outlook and pull my entire account from the server and be back in action.

I would never run an exchange server concurrently with anything personally, that being said I am not an expert, more of a junior admin with some good experience with servers.


----------



## avisitor (Jul 13, 2008)

blakcshadow said:


> The hosted exchange causes lag on the network, slowing it down to a crawl. The password needs to be re-entered every time Outlook start, etc


That's not a very good answer. Saying that hosted exchange causes lag on the network doesn't tell us anything. What is slow? Just exchange? Accessing resources on the local network? Internet browsing, etc?

Exchange is by far the most resource intensive of all Microsoft Server Technologies. If you want everything on one server, the recommended minimum for support is a Quad Core with 10GB RAM. If you feel like buying that, go ahead. Frankly, if you have the resources to buy that, you should probably hire a certified Exchange Administrator to set it up. Then you also have the cost of licensing Windows Server 2008 and Exchange itself. It's not cheap.

I think the better solution is to troubleshoot what's wrong with your current setup. How fast is your internet connection? T1, Business grade DSL or Cable, something else? Static IPs?

You can try this to stop having to reauthenticate every time: http://www.petri.co.il/save-your-exchange-password-in-microsoft-outlook-2003-or-2007.htm


----------



## blakcshadow (Nov 25, 2008)

its a business grade DSL line (Connection Speed: Incoming: 1536 kbps; Outgoing: 384 kbps). When we have one computer update via the exchange server, the internet browsing on the network is affected. LAN resources are slower than usual, but not unbearably.

avisitor, the problem is, GoDaddy's Hosted Exchange forces you to connect through a proxy that doesn't support saving passwords; forcing us to use Basic instead of NLTM Authentication.


----------



## aasimenator (Dec 21, 2008)

Q1: What is a good tutorial to set up an exchange server for four email accounts?

Search for one, there are a lot of them online, read all you can before you start the setup

Q2: Will the exchange server keep the Calendars, Contacts, and emails current on a desktop, laptop, and iPhone?

Yes

Q3: How can I run them all on one physical server?

The Computer configuration is not enough for Exchange.. you need at least a quad-core 2.0 GHz + 4GB RAM

I suggest you instead setup a Pop3 & Smtp Server which are integrated with Windows since 2003, which will fetch emails from the Godaddy Server & forward them to your mailboxes. You can use Outlook/ any free clients like Thunderbird


----------



## blakcshadow (Nov 25, 2008)

I have decided to do a different approach, thanks guys!


----------

