PST File Incremental BackUp

[Shaik Zyed Alam]

Hey Good Morning

I have been wondering past days about the PST incremental backup, I work for a company which has around 100+ employees, i want to take incremental backup of PST file (MS Office 2010) through network. There are other software's available in market but company is not approving the cost instead assigned me for better solution. i have tried to find the plug in but in vain, is there any way to take incremental backup of PST ?

I am using Symantec Exec 15 but in incremental backup it takes full PST Backup every time ( i.e if full backup is taken and incremental is schedule suppose PST size is 10 GB during full backup and new mails are receiving, for every incremental it takes 10 GB of Space and incremental is scheduled daily, its wastage of space)

 

[Andrzejek]

Are you sure you want to store a back-up of the entire PST file?

"Personal Storage Table (.pst) is an open proprietary file format used to store copies of messages, calendar events, and other items within Microsoft software such as Microsoft Exchange Client, Windows Messaging, and Microsoft Outlook."

Have fun.

---- Andy

There is a great need for a sarcasm font.

 

[strongm]

>incremental backup of PST ?

Do you understand how an incremental backup works? In it's basic form it simply checks to see if any files in the backup set have changed since the last backup, and then backs up only those that have. As far as most backup tools are concerned, a PST is a single file. If you make a single change to a single message, calendar event or anything else held in that PST, the timestamp changes for the PST. As far as the backup software is concerned it now needs to backup the entire file. Which is what you are seeing.

I am not aware of any backup software or tool that works at the level of individual items within the PST (which is what you'd need).

 

[kjv1611]

I have a theory of how to build something to do this via VBA but I'm not promising anything yet. It's something I've been asked to look at here as well. This is just an idea that just now came to mind.

In Outlook, you can export items within a set date range or use other criteria to filter. So if you use VBA to configure an automatic routine that say once per whatever time period, it exports all the items in that date range, and then you could continue using VBA or another tool to then move/copy that file to the backup location. Now that I think about it, it may be worth sticking with VBA for the whole procedure since you're there anyway.

So what I might would want to do in VBA would basically be:
1. Export all items up through a certain date since the last export date to a file
2. Zip and copy that file to the backup location

Of course, if it's going to be depended upon, it'll take some effort to do it right which means your time, and the company's money. If you can come up with a guestimate that is above and beyond the purchased software price, then perhaps they'll want to reconsider purchasing an already existing product.

"But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Corinthians 15:57