Do you back up archive.pst files?

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ciggwin

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I'm starting to enforce mailbox size here at my company and we need a viable solution for backing up everyone's archive.pst files (Outlook 2007, Exchange 2003).

I have considered having everyone map their archive.pst location to their "My Documents" folder which is redirected via GPO to a network drive. This would take a lot of work on my end by visiting people's desks to ensure it is set up correctly. Unless I can find a regedit for the default path to the archive.pst setting in Outlook.

Another consideration is burning to DVD. I know this is time consuming but it's an archive... once you burn the DVD that's it - the old archives would be on the DVD, it's not like the user would be changing these files around. I would obviously not burn their working archive to DVD since it would constantly be getting new messages archived. This presents a problem - not backing up their most recent archive.

The user base is about 55 and the archives range in size. I have instructed the users on how to check the size of their archives, and that the archives should not exceed 2 GB. Once they get close, they are to create a new archive (or create a new archive for every calendar year - whichever comes first).

Any suggestions?
 
Storing live PST files across the network on server shares will POUND THE HECK out of your network and beat on the server very hard. Outlook connections to its PST are very chatty, many connections being made for each Outlook use.

Microsoft doesn't even support this.

Now, granted you're just doing this for your end users archive.pst files....and even though not mentioned I'm assuming their actual mailbox files are on an Exchange Server.

But if you're considering archiving PST files on a network share..make sure it's a low utilization server (no other heavy duties being run from the disk)...and be prepared for that server to have the life sucked out of its resources, and backup quirks.
 
Sounds like I will just need to have the users back up their .pst files to a DVD... easiest solution and won't take up any server resources.
 
Have them archive to the local drive.
and then place a COPY of the PST on their (a) network share?
although that certainly might not be easy to achieve.
Can the PST Backup Tool do that?
 
Another option is to leave all pst files on the pc and use a NAS device such as a Sonicwall CDP unit which can back up all pst files in real time, even when they are open.
 
You could install something like SyncToy and have them manually backup the .pst file, or schedule it to happen when they won't be logged in to the computer, at night maybe?
 
Currently my company gives me 75MB of email space on the exchange server, this fills up FAST.

Coming down the line in the near future, they have announced they are going to block our ability to create/use additional pst files and instead keep everything online via some new archive feature in Outlook. I think give us some time frame. Sounds like disaster, but whatever.

I use an external USB drive and ntbackup to backup my pst files to an external USB drive.

At home, I use thunderbird, and use Cobian to weekly archive my email folder to an external USB drive and upload an encrypted copy via sftp to a drive at my Dad's house.
 
Menelmarar said:
Currently my company gives me 75MB of email space on the exchange server, this fills up FAST.

Coming down the line in the near future, they have announced they are going to block our ability to create/use additional pst files and instead keep everything online via some new archive feature in Outlook. I think give us some time frame. Sounds like disaster, but whatever.

I use an external USB drive and ntbackup to backup my pst files to an external USB drive.

At home, I use thunderbird, and use Cobian to weekly archive my email folder to an external USB drive and upload an encrypted copy via sftp to a drive at my Dad's house.
Click to expand...

Now this is an idea.. get each user a USB drive and have them use it for archive backups (as well as all the other crap they need them for). Since we only have 55 users it wouldn't be terribly expensive, and it would have other benefits as well. The only problem is "I lost my flash drive." But I like this better than the DVD burning option. This way it is one flash drive, not multiple DVDs.
 
ciggwin said:
Now this is an idea.. get each user a USB drive and have them use it for archive backups (as well as all the other crap they need them for). Since we only have 55 users it wouldn't be terribly expensive, and it would have other benefits as well. The only problem is "I lost my flash drive." But I like this better than the DVD burning option. This way it is one flash drive, not multiple DVDs.
Click to expand...
I am techincally inclined, and I manage my own backup, because I see a need that my company doesn't provide. It wasn't hard to through it on our group's credit card. External HDD, not flash drive.

If you have that many users, even 10, users, asking them to manage their own backup really is a fail idea. Everyone will do it slightly differently, won't do it at all, will take the drives home, use them for personal storage (mp3s etc), when they lose their data they'll want you to help them figure out how to recover their data.

You really want to do this from a remote perspective, as invisible to the user as possible.
 
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