Question : mailbox size and retention 'best practices' and Outlook archive PST's

Hello all,

I know this is a very subjective question depending on the size of the Exchange environment and the number of users/mailboxes and Public Folders, but what is considered generally accepted 'best practices' for malibox size limits and mailbox management. i.e. Recipient Policy Mailbox Manager?  I am trying to come up with a well balanced plan to allow our users enough mailbox storage up on the server but also set up a server side policy to manage the size and retention - so that we don't drown in all that mail data.  I would be interested to hear how other Exchange admins handle mailbox store size limits and their procedures for server side mailbox management.

Also, how are Exchange amins handling client Outlook 'Archiving' and all those PST files that get generated are end up sitting out on client desktops and (worse) laptops?

Thanks in advance for your ideas/tips and thoughts.

Patrick

Answer : mailbox size and retention 'best practices' and Outlook archive PST's

I think it only fair to split the points among all of the experts who responded. ;)
Is there such a thing as an "A+"?