We are in process of deploying Exchange 2k to our clients, but no one has been able to answer the question of weather or not we could store Exchange 2k mailboxes on our toaster (NetApp 720) and be Microsoft compliant. We are currently using our toaster to store general data i.e. pdf's doc's etc. I am sure that the toaster will be able to store the data, but the question is restoring data in the event of deleted mail boxes etc. Microsoft has not said anything about this type configuration on a Exchange 2k box. I know lots of people who are using their toasters to store Exchange 5.5 mail boxes but none using 2k as of yet.

Has anyone tried this and what success/failure has any one encountered. I would like this work on the NetApp and not have to deploy and develop another storage solution, because in my mind there is nothing else out there that can beat a NetApp in availability and durability.

Thanks,

If it supports NFS mounted mailbox storage, it should support the toaster, and if it doesn't talk one way or another about NFS, assume it's evil with MS, but you can probably use it anyways.

The mount should be transparent, I think, but then again, I'm a unix weenie. Sounds like you'd have to run something samba like on the box to see the "drive". Note, it appears as though MS supports NFS on Windows NT.

Fear the Animal Roaming as Microsoft:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/winresource/dnwinnt/S7D5D.HTM

..is on their website giving lipservice to NFS and NT.

Overall, if you can make something look like a drive, a netapp for instance, Exchange should handle it.

-M