Mail server alternatives?

I've got SmarterMail 4.3 running on my VPS. I've already opted to eliminate SpamAssassin from the package to keep things ticking over, but as my clients start hammering it, the memory overhead required to keep that beast fed is beginning to cause trouble.

Other than the obvious "get a dedicated server in a rack" or "farm out the nasty task of dealing with email" solutions, what makes the most sense in a jodohost context? A second VPS account dedicated to the mail server?

Anyone currently running a reseller scenario with a VPS and a mail server separate that works well?
 
What about using 3rd party anti spam to filter it? This could take some load off the server due to incoming mail working better. This is a major issue today(mail spam bots) they can really kill the most powerful of servers
 
Have you considered buying a LiteHost reseller package in additional to your VPS? That would give you access to JodoHost's mail system plus all sorts of other goodies.
 
You're talking about e.g. routing stuff thru a postini kind of deal before it hits the server?

I think that's a great idea -- anyone have any idea what stuff like that might cost (setup/monthly) for, say, 20-40 domains, and a total of <500 users? I've looked at postini and some of their resellers, but they seem to prefer *not* to advertise any kind of pricing...
 
the cost with postini is per mailbox, and it has a web app to see filtered mails and pass them selectively on. So it is quite good in that regard, basically you'd just go into plesk and change the DNS MX record to point to postini, and then only postini servers would be hitting your server not any client domains, this means if a spambot network hit a clients domain it would be hitting postini and NOT loading up your server, then any legit messages would pass through.
As for pricing, they can be a bit steep :( you can go to excelmicro.com who sales postini services, they I believe offer a 30 day trial service and will be able to provide you pricing rather quickly.

We have soem ideas on this in the future for winvps clients to offer filtering for them, but it can't be implemented right now, so a 3rd party service would be best.

We also used mailwise.com for a while they too have a web itnerface to sort mails, its not at the user level like postini however, so you have a domain administrator that must find any ham in the spam and such. but they are cheaper as well.
 
Thx Stephen,

Very helpful, as always. I'm going to re-assess this whole email mess and see what makes the most sense. I really want to get out of the email-and-spam-filtering business...
 
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