Backup of large PST file creating secondary issues

[boomerang]

An old friend who I help with his computer issues has a large PST file. Over 3GB in size. It's a bit exasperating for me to see that he doesn't want to delete anything, does not strip attachments from emails etc., because I do email pretty much the exact opposite of the way he does. What makes it worse to me is that he has been retired for a long time and the importance of his email activities has diminished to a huge degree but his habits are embedded into him at this point. I understand that it is what it is and I know I can't change him.

Anyway, having been involved in computers since the home PC first became available, he understands the importance of backups. I have set him up through the years with various methods to do this, all of which required no intervention by him after my initial setup. But as the PST file size has increased, it is bringing his network to its knees. Everyone reading this should be aware that sending or receiving even one email triggers a backup because the PST file has changed. With emails coming in and being sent throughout the day, his computer is really busy and his network is congested. It doesn't help that his office in the house can only be accessed wirelessly but that is not the subject of my query.

I have talked him into archiving which has helped. But I am looking for a better solution. I'm thinking there may be a software solution and I suspect it will have a price tag. That won't be a problem unless it's outrageously expensive. Also, there is a Synology NAS on his network that neither of us (me mostly as I am his computer guy) have enough intimate knowledge of to even scratch the surface of what the Synology can do. Perhaps this can be utilized? It's the backup location now but there is a lot of software available for it.

TL;DR: How to backup huge PST files more expeditiously than a pretty much continual ongoing backup of an ever-changing file.

 

[lxskllr]

Can the backup behavior be deferred until another time? Sounds like it wouldn't be the end of the world if he lost a day's data. Do it once at 3am, instead of constantly.

 

[boomerang]

Can the backup behavior be deferred until another time? Sounds like it wouldn't be the end of the world if he lost a day's data. Do it once at 3am, instead of constantly.

That is a possibility and one we've discussed. I don't recall the reason for his hesitancy, but we are going to be revisiting all of this soon. I may have to be more forceful as it is probably the easiest solution.

 

[Dahak]

PSTs are generally a pain in the but but there are a few thing to be aware of.
how is it being backup currently that it causes such issues that a change in outlook causes it to backup and his network to crawl?

1 - It should never be worked from a networks location, meaning that the live pst file should only be saved on the local computer

2 - Any backups of the pst file should only be done when outlook is closed, again because pst files should not be used

3 - probably the easiest way to back it up is set a script or task schedule event, or some 3rd part program to copy the pst file at a set time when outlook is not active.

 

[boomerang]

I spent some time this afternoon messing with scripts. This is new territory for me. I was able to create one that did what I wanted but when I tried to make it work in Task Scheduler I couldn't get it to run. I gave up after an hour or so.

The software he is using is from Synology but it's not full-featured enough to schedule a backup.

I looked into some free solutions and decided to try Todo Backup Free and ended up getting really angry. It installed Chromium without making a mention of that and despite my unchecking the box, it changed my search provider and home page in FF. When I opened IE to check it hours later and despite having uninstalled all the software I got a prompt that something was trying to change my home page. Grrrr...

Perhaps it's time to go back to Acronis.

 

[yinan]

Macrium reflect it is cheaper than acronis.

 

[jkauff]

If you want to go the cheap route, download SyncToy and set it up as a Windows Event so it runs periodically. Me, I use GoodSync, which has never let me down and is set up to copy my .pst files to another drive every two hours. If Outlook is open, it uses the shadow copy.

 

[yinan]

Synctoy doesn't really give a backup, it gives a copy. If the original is screwed so is the copy. Eliminating anything you have done.

 

[boomerang]

I played around with the script and got it to work. I just had to educate myself a bit more and do some trial and error work. It seems like the easiest solution.

 

[jkauff]

Synctoy doesn't really give a backup, it gives a copy. If the original is screwed so is the copy. Eliminating anything you have done.

That's true of most copy programs. GoodSync, however, keeps multiple historical copies so you can always go back to a previous version.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I backup mine with 7zip to "outlook files 2016-xx-yy.7z" files. The compression takes awhile but the result is a small self-contained archive. A set of these let me revert to an older version if there is ever corruption.

So maybe a daily script to compress then copy? Ideally you'd be backing up at least some versions (weekly?) to something like Amazon S3 for off-site storage.

 

[DrDoug]

A batch file using RoboCopy and folder renaming (re-order folders & recycle oldest data) is what I use for backups. I can create as many backups as I desire, set it to run in task scheduler and have it save a log of the copy operation in each backup. I can run it on one system and have it back up that system to other systems in the network, then back those systems (and their own data) up to others if needed.