Data Storage, Mailbox Limits, enabling or disabling PSTs - always questions that come up when you're discussing messaging architecture with folks, so I thought I'd comment and hear what others thought on this subject (if you're not interested, feel free to delete now with my humble apologies for dragging you to this point). Basically I see two general philosophies: you have strict limits and encourage people to keep mailbox size way down, which is more often than not accomplished using PSTs rather than really 'managing' the mail. Or, you design the system to support the real storage needs of the company. I know this concept may seem a little controversial to some, but the thing about PSTs is they are inefficient, hard to manage (network storage of a PST is not supported by Microsoft) and difficult to recover in the event of failure. So my thought is to look to the root problem, and try to approach this from an architectural angle rather than a medieval view of storage. Think about it: when people are using PSTs, the data has to be stored somewhere. In many cases, best practices and formal support notwithstanding, this wins up on file servers. So what we now have is email stored on your network disks, taking up space, no single instance storage, and un-scannable in the event of some 'cryptic' event happening - for example, a lawsuit requiring discovery. Or maybe it's on the local hard drive - not getting backed up. If and/or when that drive fails, goodbye data. My philosophy is to build the messaging infrastructure to handle that storage of messages. Heck, you're going to wind up using less disk space in the long run because of single instance storage. This way you have manageable data assets rather than unmanageable data assets. Far superior in my opinion. Set your limits and retention policies to reflect what is really needed. You may need multiple policies to support multiple "classes" of employee, but that's easy enough to manage with multiple stores and storage groups. Of course, you need to plan for alternate storage locations for data that really needs to be kept - what better place than SharePoint? Fully searchable, some limited version control if necessary, and also manageable. Plus of course Microsoft is making huge investments in SharePoint technologies, so you're investing design considerations in something that is almost definitely going to be around for some time into the foreseeable future. Anyhow, just some random thoughts on data storage and design versus PSTs - opinions are (as always) welcome! Rick From: exchangelist-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:exchangelist-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of William Lefkovics Sent: Wednesday, September 06, 2006 12:40 PM To: exchangelist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ExchangeList] Re: PST size Indeed. Mine definitely experience degradation around the 9-12GB mark. Oh and the 1 hour plus time to wait for "Outlook did not shut down propery. data.pst is being checked for errors" to complete at startup (or when mounted) can be annoying. FAT32? Next they're going to say this is one Win98, right? ________________________________ From: exchangelist-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:exchangelist-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Periyasamy, Raj Sent: Wednesday, September 06, 2006 6:50 AM To: exchangelist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ExchangeList] Re: PST size Just think of 20GB PST files, even that's crazy. ________________________________ From: exchangelist-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:exchangelist-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Vincent Sent: Wednesday, September 06, 2006 4:10 AM To: exchangelist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ExchangeList] Re: PST size off the subject... but did you know that the 20Gb limitation for unicode is a design feature ? The technical limitation is 33Tb... Now that's a crazy thought.... Imagine your users with 33Tb files.... ----- Original Message ---- From: Nick Parkes <nick.parkes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: exchangelist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Wednesday, September 6, 2006 10:05:43 AM Subject: [ExchangeList] Re: PST size Convert it from an ANSI format PST to a UNICODE format PST. If just a single one, create a new UNICODE PST and move everything in the old one to the new one. --Nick ________________________________ From: exchangelist-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:exchangelist-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Farhan Khan Sent: 06 September 2006 08:56 To: exchangelist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ExchangeList] Re: PST size But I want to know for my sake that it can be increased or not? Or if we can increase than what's the procedure? TIA On 9/6/06, shorabh upadhyay <shorabh.upadhyay@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: Farhan, I will suggest you to create new PST instead of increase the size of your existing PST. Because 4 GB size is not recommended at all. On 9/6/06, Farhan Khan <xs2farhan@xxxxxxxxx > wrote: hi, how can we increase the size of outlook 2003 pst size from 4gb to onwards? TIA -- Thanks and Regards, Shorabh S. Upadhyay Engineer - Exchange Server Support Progressive Infotech (P) Ltd. ------------------------------------------------------------ The information contained in or attached to this email is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, or a person responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are not authorised to and must not disclose, copy, distribute, or retain this message or any part of it. It may contain information which is confidential and/or covered by legal professional or other privilege (or other rules or laws with similar effect in jurisdictions outside England and Wales). 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