User with 50+ GB of Outlook stuff

[drjones]

This client runs Exchange 2007 in house, Office 2007.

One user - biz owner - has around 20GB in his primary exchange mailbox plus about another 25GB in several different archive files.

Outlook is really starting to choke up / freeze up on him but I just don't know what the heck to do. I've told him to try to clean stuff up as much as possible, but these guys email so. damned. much., it's still a mess.

His PC is an older Dell Opti, Core 2 duo, 3GB RAM, x86 Win7 - Machine runs fine overall but I'm wondering if part of the solution wouldn't be to upgrade his workstation. Other than Outlook, the computer is great & solid.

Also the my docs/desktop are redirected to the server - outlook seemed to improve a bit when I closed those archives, which are located in his My Docs, thinking perhaps they're getting pulled over the network which I know is a huge no-no for PSTs.

Obviously we need to protect/backup the PSTs, though - what's the best way? I was looking at installing Microsoft's PST backup tool: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=9003

and then moving the PSTs into the default / appdata\local folder.

Am I correct in thinking that since their my docs are redirected to the server, and the archive PSTs are in his My Docs, that is contributing to the poor performance?

What else can we do?

 

[Markverhyden]

Also the my docs/desktop are redirected to the server - outlook seemed to improve a bit when I closed those archives, which are located in his My Docs, thinking perhaps they're getting pulled over the network which I know is a huge no-no for PSTs.

Obviously we need to protect/backup the PSTs, though - what's the best way? I was looking at installing Microsoft's PST backup tool: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=9003

and then moving the PSTs into the default / appdata\local folder.

Am I correct in thinking that since their my docs are redirected to the server, and the archive PSTs are in his My Docs, that is contributing to the poor performance?

What else can we do?

You just answered your question. Really does not matter what the application it. Working with a file that is 25 gb in size is going to be a mess.

 

[angry_geek]

Why are there psts to begin with if they're running exchange? I'm thinking a mangled and half-assed configuration on the exchange server. You keep saying "server". Am I assuming correctly there is one server handling exchange and everything else? How many exchange users?

 

[cyabro]

Correct you definitely do not want to have the pst files in a redirected folder on the server.
Move them to another location that is local to the workstation only.
Then you'll need to come up with a backup solution for the workstation.

 

[Mokester]

Outlook and Exchange

Yes you are right about Outlook being slow due to pst files being pulled from the network. With that much data I'm surprised his Outlook client hasn't started to constantly crash.

With just the size of his mailbox at 20GB...insane. Most clients I've worked with start to experience problems with a mailbox around 10GB.

You can't tell me they send that many regular emails. How are they using it? Are they attaching large files? Sending stupid cat pictures? How far back do the emails go in his mailbox? How far back do the archives go? Why does he need them? How often does he access his archives? Can the mailbox be archived again?

Basically we want to find out if we could setup a folder with permissions and have them share files that way...or SFTP...or archive again...and maybe just keep archive on server if it is no longer accessed.

I have had clients who email large attachments to other clients and kept every shred of information. Most commonly they were misusing the technology and needed to be shown alternate ways of doing things that are more efficient.

Also, don't tell him to clean it up. Explain in a nice way that this issue is critical if he wants email and you need X amount of time with him. Sit with him and go over how he uses it. Find areas to clean up and you do it for him. They pay you to be IT support and I've yet to see a SMB client...let alone the owner...do it themselves when it comes to a mailbox clean up as large as you are asking. Its just too overwhelming for them.

Break it up by year...by year and client, by project...whatever...then archive it in that contacts folder within his my documents folder...so if he needs it, its there and its a small enough archive that its fast to load/access.

Then implement a mailbox folder structure with rules on mail so that all mail is organized and can be archived easily. All you would need to do at that point is show him where they are and teach how to access if needed.

Sorry for the bad grammar and disorganized thoughts...just woke up and my dog won't leave me alone because she wants to go outside...

This client runs Exchange 2007 in house, Office 2007.

One user - biz owner - has around 20GB in his primary exchange mailbox plus about another 25GB in several different archive files.

Outlook is really starting to choke up / freeze up on him but I just don't know what the heck to do. I've told him to try to clean stuff up as much as possible, but these guys email so. damned. much., it's still a mess.

His PC is an older Dell Opti, Core 2 duo, 3GB RAM, x86 Win7 - Machine runs fine overall but I'm wondering if part of the solution wouldn't be to upgrade his workstation. Other than Outlook, the computer is great & solid.

Also the my docs/desktop are redirected to the server - outlook seemed to improve a bit when I closed those archives, which are located in his My Docs, thinking perhaps they're getting pulled over the network which I know is a huge no-no for PSTs.

Obviously we need to protect/backup the PSTs, though - what's the best way? I was looking at installing Microsoft's PST backup tool: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=9003

and then moving the PSTs into the default / appdata\local folder.

Am I correct in thinking that since their my docs are redirected to the server, and the archive PSTs are in his My Docs, that is contributing to the poor performance?

What else can we do?

 

[FremontPC]

Split off earlier email into ost files? Are you sure his workstation hdd is ok?

Maybe have a look here:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com...mailbox-database?forum=exchangesvradminlegacy

 

[carrcomp]

If I can make a suggestion ...

If this is an archiving thing, then just having PST files needs to change. Go grab a managed mail archiving service and run that.

If you don't have any let me know. I'll make a few suggestions.

 

[drjones]

Why are there psts to begin with if they're running exchange? I'm thinking a mangled and half-assed configuration on the exchange server. You keep saying "server". Am I assuming correctly there is one server handling exchange and everything else? How many exchange users?

Because he's got 50GB of emails....I've archived stuff for him, otherwise he'd have a 50GB actual mailbox, instead of a 20GB box + like 7 different PSTs.

Around 15 or so exchange users, Dell PE T410 - nothing half-assed about it.

 

[drjones]

Correct you definitely do not want to have the pst files in a redirected folder on the server.
Move them to another location that is local to the workstation only.
Then you'll need to come up with a backup solution for the workstation.

Great that's what I thought, but again I asked in my OP; what is the best way to backup these PSTs? Cobian or the microsoft PST backup tool?

Obviously needs to be something semi-automated so that we can get at least weekly backups of the PSTs, and nothing that requires any work from him.

 

[drjones]

If I can make a suggestion ...

If this is an archiving thing, then just having PST files needs to change. Go grab a managed mail archiving service and run that.

If you don't have any let me know. I'll make a few suggestions.

No idea what you are talking about; can you please provide more info?

Thank you!!

 

[drjones]

So I've closed all but two of the archives and it is running much, much better.

I'm archiving his sent items.

They just email so damned much that all that's in his inbox is about 1.5 years of stuff - prior years back to 2008 or so have already been archived.

 

[Markverhyden]

Have you gone in an cleaned out/archived the sent folder? Many times people forget about that and I have seen it be a huge part of the size issue.

 

[drjones]

Have you gone in an cleaned out/archived the sent folder? Many times people forget about that and I have seen it be a huge part of the size issue.

Oh yes, done that before and doing it as I type this....again his sent mailbox on the exchange server only goes back to 2012....all earlier stuff has already been archived.

 

[drjones]

Moekster:

They are in construction so they are constantly emailing large files back & forth, they keep everything and just unfortunately use email like everyone does which is as a giant filing cabinet / database, which we know is exactly the WRONG way to use it.

If there were any stupid cat pictures in there I'd scream.
Fortunately this is all work-related material, so it's legit.

And yes, they do cc a ton of people and constantly hit reply all to everything...they have kind of bad email habits in that regard.

 

[angry_geek]

Because he's got 50GB of emails....I've archived stuff for him, otherwise he'd have a 50GB actual mailbox, instead of a 20GB box + like 7 different PSTs.

Around 15 or so exchange users, Dell PE T410 - nothing half-assed about it.

A pe 410, without getting into too much detail, is going to struggle with that load. Let's assume it's a dual-proc with 16 Gb of ram running sbs 2011. One spindle for os and apps, another for exchange, another for shares and folder redirection. Depending on the setup, you're up to six drives. Considering the email volume, I would set up an iscsi system for exchange archiving. Everything except for the archive would be 10k rpm minimum. You are correct in that psts across the network is a big no no. However, properly configured, psts are not going to be an issue as they will not exist.

Now, one suggestion I would give in this instance is office 365 e3 or above. Unlimited mailbox size and unlimited archival. Your life suddenly gets a lot easier.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Agreed....the PSTs living across the network are you culprit. Has nothing to do with the power of the server or power of the workstation..it's about the fact that Outlook <==> it's PSTs should never be across a network. All sorts of issues can happen, including this.

Gotta figure out a different way to handle those archives. Move them local and have him open them only when needed, and close when done.

Or move him to Office 365. But I bet someone with this much e-mail volume will probably be some big power user that deals with large e-mail attachments and Office 365's 25 meg attachment limit will be a show stopper for him.

 

[JustInspired]

I've got a few clients who are still using POP and IMAP. I'm working on one at the moment who has a 17GB+ PST file and it corrupts every other week and SCANPST has to be run on it. I have arranged some time to sit down and show her how to split into archives by year.

I will probably be then using this: http://www.safepstbackup.com/Enterprise.aspx which I have been trialling for a few weeks already and have found it to be pretty good for local PST backups.

 

[EvolutionElectronics]

I had a customer who used a pop3 email service and had almost 50gb in a PST, I did what I could to clean it up once and a while, upgraded the PC to an i7 with 8gb ram, which helped but without changing everything it was useless. Finally got him to change to hosted exchange, imported about 15gb worth of emails into exchange and used mailstore to archive the rest. This seems to have done the trick for him.

 

[drjones]

Thanks guys I just moved his archives onto the root of his C: and setup cobian to do once weekly backups.

I'm still interested in learning more about archiving & other ways to deal with this for the longer term.

 

[JustInspired]

Thanks guys I just moved his archives onto the root of his C: and setup cobian to do once weekly backups.

I'm still interested in learning more about archiving & other ways to deal with this for the longer term.

I have used Cobian myself for this purpose but I found a lot of end users leave their Outlook open so I had to create a batch file to kill Outlook and set it to run as a pre-backup event in Cobian, followed by a 30 second pause before trying to back up the PST files.
I am interested in the Safe PST backup program that I posted a link to above because it does incremental without having to close Outlook.