Exchange Backup

[skk391]

Can someone please shed some light on Outlook .pst files.

I do administrator an Exchange 2003 server, but dont really have alot of knowledge about it. I installed it and setup the mailbox and basically got it working and check logs and make sure its patched but that is about it. Sorry...

I have a question about backups and Outlook. I backup using NTbackup everynight. I can see that some users have mailboxes that are reaching a 2GB size. I have read that the historic outlook problem when a mailbox reaches 2gb has not been corrected in Exchange 2003. But I am really confused on how/when to get users to archieve off emails.

If I have a 2gb mailbox. I can use exmerge and extract this as a .pst files for backups which I am now doing every so often, but if i ask users to archive what does this do? Does this new archive file come of the mailbox size?

If I ask users to archive I take it that this new file will be saved to the local Hard Drive. If the machine was to fail will I be able to restore from a recent backup?

I want to be able to restore users mailboxes to any point in time.

Thanks

 

[58sniper]

I have a question about backups and Outlook. I backup using NTbackup everynight. I can see that some users have mailboxes that are reaching a 2GB size. I have read that the historic outlook problem when a mailbox reaches 2gb has not been corrected in Exchange 2003. But I am really confused on how/when to get users to archieve off emails.

The problem really isn't as much an issue of the mailbox size, but of the number of items in the key folders like Inbox, Sent Items, etc. And there has been some updated to Outlook 2007 that address this quite well.

But I am really confused on how/when to get users to archieve off emails.

IMHO, asking users, or expecting users, to archive mail is a mistake. .pst files are not only NOT supported on network servers, but Microsoft has repeatedly said "don't do it". There are a LOT of reasons (legal and technical) why .pst files are bad. An organization should look at org level archiving solutions such as those provided by third parties, as well as retention/purging policies within Exchange. The current best practices is to prohibit the use of .pst files.

If I ask users to archive I take it that this new file will be saved to the local Hard Drive. If the machine was to fail will I be able to restore from a recent backup?

Nope. When messages are "archived" to .pst files, they are no longer in Exchange. They take more space in .pst files than in Exchange. You lose Single Instancing. You can't virus scan them. You can't automatically compact them. There are size limits on some formats of .pst files. You complicate legal eDiscovery efforts.... I could go on and on....

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/