Ponzi and I have been considering switching to a hosted Exchange provider for many months now, but I’m not taking the decision lightly. Cost is a factor, but not necessarily in exchange for reliability. Our needs aren’t complex in the grand scheme of things, but this transition needs to be smooth. 1&1 was recommended by some, RackSpace by others, Mailstreet by a few more, 4smartphone.com by Jason Dunn… but none of them have been able to answer one very important question.

Here’s a typical online chat I’ve been having with Hosted Exchange providers as of late:

[Andy] Hello, let me know if I can be of any assistance or answer any questions about our Hosted Exchange service.

[Chris Pirillo] We have a few POP3 mailboxes, some forward accounts… only a few users actually need Exchange (and I can tell you our respective PSTs are approaching the 2GB limit – what happens if we go over that?)

[Andy] Hi Chris
[Andy] We do have a hardlimit of 2 gig

[Chris Pirillo] What happens when we hit that ceiling?

[Andy] once an exchange mailbox is full you cannot send or recieve emails

[Chris Pirillo] hrm.
[Chris Pirillo] but can’t the OST go beyond 2GB?

[Andy] and if someone send and email to that full mailbox it gets bounced back to them

[Chris Pirillo] Right, I got that – it’s full. But how can you help make sure we don’t hit that limit with a PST? Like I said, I’m already almost at that count – as is my partner, respectively.

[Andy] we also setup a warning email that is sent automatically within 20 mb of the mailbox limit

[Chris Pirillo] Right, but… you’re basically saying that you, as a hosted Exchange provider, won’t be able to keep us past 2GB and that we’ll have to sacrifice older emails to keep things under 2GB?

[Andy] correct

[Chris Pirillo] okie dokie. :)

Hosted Exchange Problems