This article applies to:

• Trustwave MailMarshal (SEG)
  • Updated for version 11.X on Windows Server 2025

Question:

• What are the hardware and software requirements for Trustwave MailMarshal (SEG)?
• Should SQL Express or SQL Server be used with MailMarshal?

Information:

Hardware Required for Trustwave MailMarshal Server

The hardware required for a MailMarshal server naturally varies depending on the number of email users and the amount of email traffic. The following specifications are suggested for a single-server installation of MailMarshal with current Windows versions:

• 1,000 users: 4 cores 2.6GHz (Core i5 or similar), 20GB HD free, 10GB total system RAM
• 10,000 users: 4 cores 3GHz (better Core i7 or similar), 100GB HD free, 20GB total system RAM

For SQL Express installed on the same server, add 2GB RAM to the above specifications. Use of full SQL Server is not recommended in a single-server deployment.

Sites with more than 10,000 users should generally use an array with separate Array Manager and multiple processing servers.

Note: Processor and memory suggestions are based on experience, but each installation differs. Where processing is slow and resource usage high, Trustwave recommends allocating additional resources. Remember that standard Windows applications such as Defender and Windows Update can consume significant resources.

Hardware planning considerations for MailMarshal Array installations:

In an Array installation, MailMarshal will typically include an Array Manager computer, multiple email processing servers, and a SQL Server computer.

• Array Manager: Array Manager is not resource intensive. For a standalone Array Manager computer the most important component is the processor.
  • The Array Manager software can be installed on the SQL Server, in which case see the SQL Server hardware requirements.
  • If you install Array Manager with SQL, limit SQL memory usage. See Q14902.
• SQL Server: SQL Server is memory and disk intensive. 25% or more of the SEG database is indices. Performance is improved when more of the indices fit into physical RAM. The SQL databases also use a lot of disk I/O, so careful planning with regard to the SQL data file location(s) is required. Large installations should consider using separate drives for the data and log files. Consult the chart below to understand potential SEG database size. Consult Microsoft documentation for specifics on optimizing a SQL server installation.
  
  Smaller sites can use SQL Express, the free version of Microsoft SQL Server.
  
  • Note that SQL Express enforces a database size limitation of 10 GB in all currently supported versions. This limitation is set by Microsoft.

To determine MailMarshal database size, allow 1100 bytes per message or classification logged.

The data provided in the table below assumes that an average user sends and receives 70 SMTP messages per day through the server. You can use these numbers as a guideline if the assumptions for email volume, log retention duration, and safety margin are appropriate for you.

Notes:

• If additional classifications are logged for a message, allow an additional 1100 bytes per classification.
• Indexing of the message table adds several hundred bytes per record.
• Attached files are also logged in a database table. This table can be large if many attachments are being transmitted.
• Higher volume of messages will significantly increase the growth of the database.  Volume varies widely depending on organization type and company policy. For additional guidelines, see the worksheet in the MailMarshal User Guide.

 

Users	Email / Day / User	Days to Keep Logs	Safety Margin	GB (Rounded)	Database Version to Use
100	70	100	1.25	2	Express
200	70	100	1.25	3.5	Express
250	70	100	1.25	4.5	Express
500	70	100	1.25	9	Express (2012 or later)
1000	70	100	1.25	20	SQL
2000	70	100	1.25	35	SQL
5000	70	100	1.25	90	SQL

• Email processing server(s): Processing servers are disk intensive.  There is a lot of disk I/O during email processing.
  • The processor should be recent (less than 2 years old), but is not the most critical item.
  • For memory and disk sizing suggestions, see the following table. Note that quarantine size depends on archiving and retention policies.
  • In most cases SQL would not be installed on a standalone processing server.
  • For sites with more than 10,000 users, it may be more cost effective to add SEG processing servers (rather than having one larger server). Multiple servers also provide redundancy.
  • Don't under-specify. Allow for growth.
  • System memory values in the table below have been updated to account for observed system overheads with the latest Windows versions.

Email Users	Messages per Day	Text Log Size per day in MB	Quarantine Directory and Spam Logs per day in MB	CPU GHz	Total System Memory GB	Hard Drive Free GB
100	2,000	21	9	2.6 dual	6	4
250	5,000	53	23	2.6 dual	8	10
500	10,000	106	46	2.6 dual	10	20
1000	20,000	212	93	2.6 quad	10	40
5000	100,000	1061	464	2.6 quad	16	100
10,000	200,000	2122	927	3 quad	20	200
25,000	500,000	5305	2318	3.3 quad	24	400
50,000	1,000,000	10610	4635	2x3.3 quad	32	1000

Software Required for MailMarshal

For the requirements specific to your version of MailMarshal refer to the release notes included with the installation or see the MailMarshal documentation.

MailMarshal generally supports installation on Windows Server versions that were supported at the time of release of the specific version. For details, see the release notes for each MailMarshal release.

Basic information about the requirements for the latest released version of MailMarshal is available in Trustwave Knowledge Base article Q11358.

Best Practices

When sizing a MailMarshal installation, consider the following best practices as well as the specific minimum requirements listed:

• Don’t under-specify – allow for growth and unexpected load.
• Do allow for Windows default applications such as Defender.
• Do allow extra hard disk space – disk performance is reduced when free space is low. 30% free space is a recommended minimum.
• Do allow for redundancy and peak flow – the server should be able to clear a backlog comfortably.
• Do check the assumptions in this document against your organization’s email traffic patterns and message retention requirements.

Virtual Machines

MailMarshal functions well in a virtualized environment. Note the following points:

• The host server must have enough processor and memory resources for all guest VMs as well as the host operating system.
• If you are hosting multiple virtual servers, use at least one PHYSICAL disk drive per server. MailMarshal operation is disk intensive. A physical drive hosting multiple virtual drives can easily be overloaded.

Notes:

Please review the Hardware and Software Requirements section in the current version of the User Guide, which is included in the product download package, also copied within Help, and is available on the MailMarshal documentation page.

Related Articles:

• Q11358 : Prerequisites and supported operating systems
• Q10423 : How do I performance tune SEG/MailMarshal?

This article was previously published as:

NETIQKB40931

NETIQKB40914

Q10723