Recovering Archived files via .OST
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@IRJ said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
Our IT department accidentally deleted a VP's mailbox after he left. Luckily a found a free tool to open OST files. Kernel OST Viewer
Interesting find. Thanks!
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@wirestyle22 said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@MattSpeller said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@wirestyle22 said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@MattSpeller said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@wirestyle22 said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
The PST file was moved outside of the local drive and was no longer on the local machine. This is why I was unable to find it. I eventually found it inside of an obscure folder deep within the file server.
good grief
From what I understand this guys mailbox size is 32 GB and the last guy here had to show him how to partition the files and move them outside of his local machine? I was like wat
I make a folder on our NAS for all users that's hidden and leave a copy of their PST files in it. Then they can break the local copy and I can save the day.
I spoke to the guy who was here before me (we are really cool with each other) and he said all of the PST files are only on the local machines. I'm going to need to change that.
Hopefully by removing PSTs completely?
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@scottalanmiller said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@wirestyle22 said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@MattSpeller said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@wirestyle22 said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@MattSpeller said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@wirestyle22 said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
The PST file was moved outside of the local drive and was no longer on the local machine. This is why I was unable to find it. I eventually found it inside of an obscure folder deep within the file server.
good grief
From what I understand this guys mailbox size is 32 GB and the last guy here had to show him how to partition the files and move them outside of his local machine? I was like wat
I make a folder on our NAS for all users that's hidden and leave a copy of their PST files in it. Then they can break the local copy and I can save the day.
I spoke to the guy who was here before me (we are really cool with each other) and he said all of the PST files are only on the local machines. I'm going to need to change that.
Hopefully by removing PSTs completely?
I was going to remove my head from my body but yeah that works too.
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@scottalanmiller said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@wirestyle22 said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@MattSpeller said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@wirestyle22 said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@MattSpeller said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@wirestyle22 said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
The PST file was moved outside of the local drive and was no longer on the local machine. This is why I was unable to find it. I eventually found it inside of an obscure folder deep within the file server.
good grief
From what I understand this guys mailbox size is 32 GB and the last guy here had to show him how to partition the files and move them outside of his local machine? I was like wat
I make a folder on our NAS for all users that's hidden and leave a copy of their PST files in it. Then they can break the local copy and I can save the day.
I spoke to the guy who was here before me (we are really cool with each other) and he said all of the PST files are only on the local machines. I'm going to need to change that.
Hopefully by removing PSTs completely?
That is not the default behavior of Outlook. When you create an archive, it makes it a local PST.
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@JaredBusch said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@scottalanmiller said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@wirestyle22 said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@MattSpeller said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@wirestyle22 said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@MattSpeller said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@wirestyle22 said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
The PST file was moved outside of the local drive and was no longer on the local machine. This is why I was unable to find it. I eventually found it inside of an obscure folder deep within the file server.
good grief
From what I understand this guys mailbox size is 32 GB and the last guy here had to show him how to partition the files and move them outside of his local machine? I was like wat
I make a folder on our NAS for all users that's hidden and leave a copy of their PST files in it. Then they can break the local copy and I can save the day.
I spoke to the guy who was here before me (we are really cool with each other) and he said all of the PST files are only on the local machines. I'm going to need to change that.
Hopefully by removing PSTs completely?
That is not the default behavior of Outlook. When you create an archive, it makes it a local PST.
By default, yes. But it is not the only option. Having archives maintained by IT rather than by the end users is generally a huge boost to reliability and stability and, ultimately, reducing IT costs.
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@scottalanmiller said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@JaredBusch said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@scottalanmiller said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@wirestyle22 said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@MattSpeller said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@wirestyle22 said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@MattSpeller said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@wirestyle22 said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
The PST file was moved outside of the local drive and was no longer on the local machine. This is why I was unable to find it. I eventually found it inside of an obscure folder deep within the file server.
good grief
From what I understand this guys mailbox size is 32 GB and the last guy here had to show him how to partition the files and move them outside of his local machine? I was like wat
I make a folder on our NAS for all users that's hidden and leave a copy of their PST files in it. Then they can break the local copy and I can save the day.
I spoke to the guy who was here before me (we are really cool with each other) and he said all of the PST files are only on the local machines. I'm going to need to change that.
Hopefully by removing PSTs completely?
That is not the default behavior of Outlook. When you create an archive, it makes it a local PST.
By default, yes. But it is not the only option. Having archives maintained by IT rather than by the end users is generally a huge boost to reliability and stability and, ultimately, reducing IT costs.
What would be the proper way for me to set this up conceptually?
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@wirestyle22 said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@scottalanmiller said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@JaredBusch said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@scottalanmiller said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@wirestyle22 said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@MattSpeller said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@wirestyle22 said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@MattSpeller said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@wirestyle22 said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
The PST file was moved outside of the local drive and was no longer on the local machine. This is why I was unable to find it. I eventually found it inside of an obscure folder deep within the file server.
good grief
From what I understand this guys mailbox size is 32 GB and the last guy here had to show him how to partition the files and move them outside of his local machine? I was like wat
I make a folder on our NAS for all users that's hidden and leave a copy of their PST files in it. Then they can break the local copy and I can save the day.
I spoke to the guy who was here before me (we are really cool with each other) and he said all of the PST files are only on the local machines. I'm going to need to change that.
Hopefully by removing PSTs completely?
That is not the default behavior of Outlook. When you create an archive, it makes it a local PST.
By default, yes. But it is not the only option. Having archives maintained by IT rather than by the end users is generally a huge boost to reliability and stability and, ultimately, reducing IT costs.
What would be the proper way for me to set this up conceptually?
There isn't one single proper way, but I'm of the camp that any "files" associated with email is conceptually wrong or bad. Why have multiple interfaces to email storage and why tie that to a client application? Why archive anywhere but on the server itself so that all email is in one place, governed by a single policy, backed up as a single entity? You wouldn't tell users to manage their own file archives on their desktops, right? You wouldn't want them storing anything locally on their desktops normally, right? Why make an exception for email and treat it differently than other things?
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Think of email like a database. Imagine if you told users to randomly "pull out database entries you don't plan to use often" and "copy them into an Excel spreadsheet and store it on your desktop somewhere."
Sounds weird when you stop thinking of email as a special case scenario, right?
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@scottalanmiller said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
Think of email like a database. Imagine if you told users to randomly "pull out database entries you don't plan to use often" and "copy them into an Excel spreadsheet and store it on your desktop somewhere."
Sounds weird when you stop thinking of email as a special case scenario, right?
Yes, but Exchange can turn into a monster if you aren't careful and don't enforce quotas. Generally people are archiving because they met their quota.
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@IRJ said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@scottalanmiller said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
Think of email like a database. Imagine if you told users to randomly "pull out database entries you don't plan to use often" and "copy them into an Excel spreadsheet and store it on your desktop somewhere."
Sounds weird when you stop thinking of email as a special case scenario, right?
Yes, but Exchange can turn into a monster if you aren't careful and don't enforce quotas. Generally people are archiving because they met their quota.
That's just making one mistake and using it to justify a second mistake. Exchange can handle insane volumes and if quotas are too small, that's an administration mistake. If quotas are not too small and IT is telling people to keep going past their quotas but to do this, that's yet another process mistake.
If we have sensible processes and quotas, these issues don't really come up. But no matter what, I've never seen a scenario where capacity warranted a PST (since 2002 or so.)
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I'm starting to agree with Scott - why archive at all? O365 offers 50 GB mail files on the low end and unlimited on the E3 and higher plans. They also offer server side archiving if you really need it.
I enforce small email quotas more to force people to clean up their shit than because I'm worried about the size on the server. But perhaps I shouldn't even worry about that.
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@Dashrender said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
I enforce small email quotas more to force people to clean up their shit than because I'm worried about the size on the server. But perhaps I shouldn't even worry about that.
I lean towards "don't worry about it" most of the time. But if quotas exist to force people to clean up, that rules out PSTs as that bypasses the cleanup requirement and, in fact, makes it far worse.
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@scottalanmiller said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
@Dashrender said in Recovering Archived files via .OST:
I enforce small email quotas more to force people to clean up their shit than because I'm worried about the size on the server. But perhaps I shouldn't even worry about that.
I lean towards "don't worry about it" most of the time. But if quotas exist to force people to clean up, that rules out PSTs as that bypasses the cleanup requirement and, in fact, makes it far worse.
the only people who have PSTs in my environment are those that don't have quotas (management). The PSTs are mostly for archiving, but a few people still live and die by that old data. I should just reimport it and forget about it.
