Alternative to storing .pst files on NAS?

[BobMCT]

Gentlemen;
We use a hosted exchange server and Outlook 2003 clients and our people are constantly running into "mailbox full" errors. The reason is that people like to store their mail for long periods of time. On my desktop I created a .pst file on a NAS drive (where my home directory is) and this seems to work well as I move messages from the inbox to one of several folders in this NAS .pst file.

However, M$ article ID 297019 states that this should NOT be done blah blah blah.

If this is true then other than storing the .pst's on the local client hard drive (we're moving to thin-clients soon) what alternatives is anyone else using successfully? Of, if you are using remote .psts successfully, I'd really appreciate hearing about it?

Ideas? Suggestions?

Thanks

 

[ForumKB]

The article is more of a we don't recommend it than a you shouldn't do it. If your PSTs are on a network drive they are backed up. There are potential issues if you have network connectivity issues but I do not see any problem with it.




Adrian Paris

Paris Engineering Ltd

http://www.ForumKB.com

Google search of just tech forums & articles
(very useful, honest!)

 

[58sniper]

There are plenty of issues with putting .pst files on a network share - not the least of which is latency causing data loss.

You don't mention what type of server you're using, but I'm assuming it's Exchange.

You'll have far less grief if you just increase their mailbox limits.

There are a TON of reasons why you should never use .pst files in an Exchange environment.

Pat Richard
Microsoft Exchange MVP

 

[BobMCT]

Thank you guys. It is an exchange server (Hosted) and we are paying a monthly fee by the megabyte. Some of our users' .pst files were exceeding 500MB. Even though we are archiving all our mail most users still insist on saving everything.

What I ended up doing was install an imap server connected to the NAS with an encrypted access port. I then defined this as an additional email account which appears directly below the exchange account in everyone's outlook panel. We're able to move/drag any messages to any of the folders on the imap server without incident. This seems to have overcome this problem.

Thanks again.

 

[nervous2]

I have 20 users at my company (no exchange box) and we all run Outlook 2003 about 10 of these users have their E-mail stored in their HomeDirectory "Z" drive. I have been doing this for about 2 years

here are the issues I run into. When I need to reboot the server those who have their email connect to it, obviously have issues, they cant' access email until the server is rebooted. Then when it is up they usually have to log out of the system then log back in.

Sometimes their home directories don't connect on login (rare but it happens) then when they try to access outlook it says the PST file is not located do you want to create a new one, a lot of times the user will click yes and then they have a new PST file on their local computer and they can't see any of their past E-mails. You also may need to repair the pst file from time to time if you run into server issues.

I will eventually get an Exchange server but until now I have managed this way with slight easy to fix issues.

 

[mofusjtf]

I agree with 58Sniper, there are plenty of issues with storing PST files on a network share.

I would examine the costs of your issues (time) and your hosted Exchange and compare it with the cost of SBS. If your organization fits within the SBS limitations then I would seriously consider it.

Nervous2,I think SBS is a perfect fit for you.

If you still need to archive mail out of Exchange then you can use an archiving solution from someone like GFI.

 

[nervous2]

Thanks mofusjtf for the suggestion. I was wondering if you could explain something about the licensing with exchange.

If I have MS SBS with 25 Cals. then I have 30 Email addresses will I need to buy 5 cals for these addresses? My hosting provider offers me 1000 Email addresses with my account, I have about 50 created. How many E-mails can I have exchange handle?

Thanks

 

[mofusjtf]

Licensing can be a bit tricky with any product. SBS has a 75 CAL limint on the server. That does not mean you are limited to 75 users or 75 devices. You can use any combination of device and/or user CALS to meet the requirements. For example: You have 2 shifts with 75 users on each shift. Each shift shares 75 computers. You would purchase 75 device CALS giving your 150 users access to your SBS network.

In you scenario you have 25 users but 30 email addresses. The question to ask is what are the extra 5 email addresses used for and who needs access to them? If they are public access email addresses you can purchase 25 CALS and then just use mail enabled Public Folders for the 5 public email addresses. All your users will be able to access the Public Folders.

If a specific user is the only individual that gets the email for one of the extra 5 email addresses you would simply add said email as an alias to said user account.

It all depends on how you need to use your email addresses. You are not limited to a number of email addresses in SBS. Between public folders and adding aliases you can have far more email addresses than you have CALs for.

User CALs' limit you to the number of users that can access the server. These are used when you have a user who has a desktop, laptop and smartphone. In this example a user would take 3 device CALs but only one user CAL so you would purchase a user CAL.

I hope this helps. But with 20 users you should be able to fall within the constraints of SBS.