On 13 jan, 19:44, "Diane Poremsky" wrote:
Finding anything in that mess would be a nightmare - searching 84 separate
psts for each employee involved would take days. Get a real archival system
that was designed for just such a scenario.http://www.slipstick.com/exs/archive.asp

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Need Help with Common Tasks?http://www.outlook-tips.net/beginner/
Outlook 2007:http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/ol2007/

Outlook Tips by email:


Outlook Tips:http://www.outlook-tips.net/
Outlook & Exchange Solutions Center:http://www.slipstick.com
Subscribe to Exchange Messaging Outlook newsletter:


"Marsh" wrote in message

...

We have groups within our company that is required to retain business
e-mails, including attachments, for a period of 7 years. Some attachments
can be quite large. Mailboxes can become quite bloated.
What I would like to have them do is archive the emails on a monthly
basis,
compress the archive somehow (like a zip file), move the compressed
archive
to a CD, DVD, or even a network directory.
Next month start a new archive and repeat the process.
When necessary, a compressed archive should be decompressed, the archive
restored to read one or more of the e-mails within it, and then
rearchive,
compress, and move back.
What would be the best way to proceed.

If you really want to keep every file and email the company shouldn't
ask anything to the user: just backup everything using a good backup
tool.
I think that's not the point. I think important email and attachments
should be kept for 7 years, and you only need to give the user a good
tool to archive the email directly at sending it, or after reading it.
We've choosen for mailtofile (www.mailtofile.com) to archive email as
msg file in a directory. Together with the other files. This file
server is easy to backup, easy to search. And easy to sha I you
work on a project you can find and read all relevant email.
Old project can be easily moved to an second file server, using
another back up procedure. And a file server is much safer to grow in
GB than a Exchange database or pst files. Even for backup this is a
point. A pst file and Exchange database change every day, even when
only one email arives (imagine one email a day woow). Every day you
need a full backup of such a pst file or the Exchange database. You
don't need that for (old) Worddocuments, email and other files: there
file date time gives information about changes.. And most files aren't
changed at all after creating it. That makes archiving very easy!
have a good day