Testing was done with a SuperMicro dual six-core Xeon server with 32GB RAM, 8x320GB drives in RAID 5 and 4Gbps Fibre Channel connected to a Compellent Storage Center. The server was running Exchange 2007 on Windows 2008 R2. We installed each software product on the server along with required additional pieces such as the SQL Server (which might normally run on a separate server).
We went through the process of setting up archiving, looking at what’s necessary in the way of creating additional accounts or services, or whatever else might be necessary to enable the functions, then archiving some test mailboxes and looking at the actual ability to restore individual messages as well as complete mailboxes, either to the same or a different mail store.
Each product was evaluated in the following areas:
• Installation and documentation
• Ease of use
• Flexibility of configuration to suit differing network architectures.
• Performance –throughput, IOPs and latency
• Price/performance – what is the gain, and at what cost? Obviously, these systems are not for everyone – who will benefit from the added performance enough to justify the relatively high cost?
