Wolf Posted October 20, 2006 Report Share Posted October 20, 2006 Outlook PST files tend to be huge, and a poor design leads Outlook to modify every PST file it interacts with even if the user's interaction is read-only, or even just load-only (so if one connects with a number of archive files simply to have indexing turned on with respect to them, each archive file changes every time you run Outlook). Ideally, the backup software would store only CHANGES in each Outlook PST file, and not the whole file. (These are often called "delta" backups, or "in-file delta" or "sub-file delta" backups.) This would allow it to back up a few kilobytes rather than gigabytes if one were to backup, run Outlook and check mail once, and then backup again. If it's a matter of backing up every day, then this would be the difference between a few megabytes and a few gigabytes--an enormous difference! I know some products do this (see Mobiliti, Safe Data Storage, Ltd., and some others), but does Retrospect? I realize this example is a Microsoft product flaw, but Microsoft rarely corrects design flaws--this has been an issue for over a decade, and there are no signs that Microsoft cares about this issue. Also, this same issue arises with other big and slightly changed files, such as database files (e.g., a 10GB database with only 500 records changed since the last backup). It certainly IS possible to work around it, and smart backup software should do that, as this will completely pointlessly and counterproductively be the bulk of each day's backup otherwise. But does Retrospect do this, in any version? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolf Posted October 20, 2006 Author Report Share Posted October 20, 2006 For another piece of software the does this, see Vembu StoreGrid, which includes a free version. It'd be very nice if Retrospect had this file-differencing capability--but maybe it does and I just don't realize it yet...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nekr0phage Posted October 20, 2006 Report Share Posted October 20, 2006 Hi Wolf, No, Retrospect will backup the entire pst file every time it runs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolf Posted October 21, 2006 Author Report Share Posted October 21, 2006 Okay; thanks for the amazingly prompt and sadly helpful reply, Foster! I hope this is changed soon--this would change a 5 GB daily Outlook backup to a few MB, I think, saving a lot of time and bandwidth. Other people are doing it, so.... Wolf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ncasar Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 I'm, hoping one of you are still following this thread. I can't seem to select the pst files for back up in restrospect express. any idea whi this is so? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ncasar Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 btw, retrospect doesn't even show the pst files when i go to the place they are stored on my pc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.