Data storageTake into account the mail usage and retention practices of the business and plan to store your Exchange data and log files on disks or partitions with ample free space for additional copies of the databases and logs in a recovery or repair situation. The additional space required can be considerable, and free space of at least 120% of your projected maximum Exchange database size (.edb plus .stm files plus .logs if hosted on the same partition) is recommended.
Disable circular loggingConfigure an Exchange-aware backup as soon as practical after setup, ensuring that circular logging is disabled and a full System State backup run and verified. Immediately after disabling circular logging, a full backup of Exchange should be run to provide the base point for future backups.
ExMergeDownload the latest version of ExMerge appropriate to version of Exchange and install it to the %Program Files%\Exchsrvr\bin directory. Add the %Program Files%\Exchsrvr\bin directory to the Systems Path variable so that ExMerge can locate required Exchange DLLs, and you can easily execute both it and other utilities such as ESEutil and ISinteg from the command line. Prepare yourself by reading the comprehensive manual. Add ExMerge to your toolkit and practice using it.
Copy/move dataCopying and moving data on the same partition is much faster than doing so between partitions, across the LAN, or to/from backup tape or external storage. Having ample room on the Exchange partition can dramatically reduce the time involved in recovery/restore operations of large Exchange databases.
Recovery Storage GroupDo not leave a Recovery Storage Group longer than necessary for the recovery operation. It takes up needless space and can conflict with other operations.
