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12 Dell EMC SC Series: Microsoft Exchange Server Best Practices | CML1037
Mailbox I/O requirements are substantially lowered since Exchange 2013. The overall I/O requirement for
Exchange 2016 mailboxes has decreased by over 50 percent from Exchange 2010. Exchange 2019 data is
not yet available.
Change in IOPS per mailbox requirements by version of Exchange Server
Microsoft provides the following information on simulation and analysis tools for Exchange (links provided):
Jetstress 2013 should be used to simulate disk I/O load on a test server running Exchange 2013 or 2016 to
verify the performance and stability of the disk subsystem before putting the server into a production
environment. Find more information on
Microsoft.com.
Exchange Load Generator is a simulation tool used to measure the impact of MAPI, OWA, ActiveSync,
IMAP, POP, and SMTP clients on Exchange 2013–2016 servers. Find more information on the page
Exchange Load Generator 2013 (64 bit).
Exchange Profile Analyzer collects estimated statistical information from a single mailbox store or across an
Exchange Server 2007 or 2010 organization. The collected data can be used to analyze the performance and
sizing of a server with mailboxes that will be migrated to Exchange 2016.
Microsoft Exchange Server Profile
Analyzer (64 bit).
Exchange Server Role Requirements Calculator, a spreadsheet-based calculator, is very helpful in
designing the best environment (both storage and hardware) based on criteria including the following:
• User profile: message profile, mailbox size, and number of users
• High availability architecture: number of database copies planned to deploy, whether the solution will
be site resilient or not, and desired number of mailbox servers
• Server CPU platform
• Storage architecture: disk capacity/type and storage solution
• Backup architecture: whether to use hardware/software VSS and specify the frequency of the
backups, or leverage the Exchange native data protection features
• Network architecture: utilization, throughput, and latency aspects
• Mailbox I/O: at this time, the Exchange 2019 mailbox I/O load is still pending (document will be
updated when data is available)
0.325
0.1
0.05
0.039
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
2007 2010 2013 2016
IOPS per mailbox
Exchange version
(profile: Heavy)
Mailbox profile I/O requirements