Microsoft Exchange is the world’s most widely deployed email and collaboration solution. Microsoft continues to improve the product with each new revision, pushing the limits of existing server and storage devices. Microsoft Exchange 2007 is the latest version of the popular email solution.

The most critical component of an Exchange deployment is the storage subsystem where the data is held. The data flow from the storage to the Exchange application tends to be of small block size and random in nature. This type of workload is one of the most demanding for any storage subsystem to handle without performance bottlenecks. Incorrect sizing of the storage array or improper deployment practices at the data layer will lead to serious performance consequences for the Exchange solution. While Exchange goes far beyond offering just email service and management, the scope of this paper is storage sizing and deployment practices for Microsoft Exchange 2007 SP1 on the Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom in an email environment.