Information about the storage of data files on an encrypted volume in Exchange Server

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INTRODUCTION

This article discusses the storage of Microsoft Exchange Server data files on an encrypted volume.

Microsoft does not support the storage of Exchange data files on an Encrypting File System (EFS) encrypted volume. When you store your Exchange data files on an encrypted volume, the additional overhead that the Encrypting File System requires significantly impacts the performance of Exchange. The Exchange data files include all the following files:

.edb files
.stm files
.log files

To help secure your Exchange data files, Microsoft recommends that you prevent unauthorized access to the Exchange computer and that you use the S/MIME message format to encrypt message data.

Note There are no .stm database files in Exchange 2007.

For additional information about how to configure S/MIME in Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, see the Quick Start Guide for S/MIME in Exchange Server 2003. To obtain this guide, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2305405C-FAF1-488A-A856-AD467BB59B26 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2305405C-FAF1-488A-A856-AD467BB59B26)