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Archiving Exchange messages in PST files

Hello to all!

I want to archive messages from mailboxes in an Exchange 2003 Server. To archive messages, I'm going to use Exmerge, that removes the messages from the mailbox and saves it to the PST file.

I've install Microsoft Outlook 2003 in the server (exmerge needs it to save do the PST), but if the archiving session makes the PST grows bigger than 2 GB, it gets corrupted.

How can I avoid this and use a bigger PST without the risk of corruption?

Or

Is there any other free solution to archive messages from mailboxes in Exchange 2003?

Thanks

tmeunier

Examine the mailbox sizes before you begin, and if a person has a mailbox that's say, 10GB, then break it down into chunks. JSMITH2009.PST, JSMITH2008.PST, JSMITH2007Q1-Q2.PST, etc.

Not sure that there's a free solution for this. But once you begin doing this, you'll find what intervals you'll need to honor to keep the sizes manageable. You can get a decent guesstimate of mailbox size right in Exchange System Manager.

-tom

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tigermatt

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tigermatt

I have to admit, Tom's solution is rather interesting (break it down into different years), but I would still never recommend archiving to the PST format.

-Matt

Abilis

ASKER

I did that already, but there are to many mailboxes with a lot of data inside. I'm asking right because it was not a good option.
Any other suggestion?

Thanks anyway.

tmeunier

nb: and I have to admit, tigermatt is right that PSTs are evil. There's a darned good reason that pretty much EVERY archival product on the market includes, or sells as an add-on, a tool to scrape all the PSTs it finds on your network or in local machines back into the archive. There are tons of reasons for this, but suffice it to say that it's not an accident.

Abilis

ASKER

Everything I needed to know about.