Re: Best practice for PST files?
- From: Patrick Rouse <PatrickRouse@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 19:17:01 -0700
Jeff took the words right out of my mouth. I can't believe people use PST
storage and POP mailboxes. One word, "Exchange". Before you exclaim, it's
too expensive fo my client... consider these:
1. Centralized information store containing everyone's mailboxes will
reduced the overall storage requirement due to Exchange's Single Instance
Storage, i.e. 5MB PPT file sent to 20 people using PST storage consumes 100MB
of network storage that needs to be backed-up. This same email in the
Exchange Information Store uses about 5MB, because it's only stored once, and
referenced by each mailbox.
2. Simplified backup and restore. Since the mailboxes are centralized in
one database, backup is a snap, and restore is almost never needed due to the
following features of Outlook & Exchange:
a. Deleted Item Recovery allows users to undelete items from any folder
in outlook (when enabled on the mailbox store), going back as many days as
you configure (30-90 days is pretty standard).
b. Deleted Mailbox Retention allow you to reconnect a deleted mailbox to a
new user account.
c. Exchange 2003 has a recovery storage group which allows you to mount a
copy of your information store for the purposes of exporting items that need
to be restored, without having to bring a recovery server online.
3. Reduction in bandwidth usage. Since users maiulboxes are on one SMTP
Server, emails sent to a bunch of users are delivered once, instead of being
downloaded individually by each user. If you get a 5MB PPT emailed to 20
people in your company, you consume only 5MB of bandwidth as the message is
delivered in one transcation, whereas with POP & PST you'd consume 100MB of
bandwidth as each user downloads the message when they open Outlook. This is
a very big deal.
4. Storing PST on a network drive is NOT supported by Microsoft.
5. If you own Exchange Server and Software Assurance, you always have
access to the latest version of Outlook, as this is part of the Exchange
License.
6. Centralized Virus Scanning. Scanning for viruses after the email has
arrived in the users mailbox is just the wrong way to prevent an outbreak.
Exchange supports VSAPI scanning, which scans the SMTP message for viruses
before the item is placed in user's mailboxs, allowing your to delete
infected attachments or file types you want to block without users ever
seeing them.
7. Ability to access your mailbox from multiple computers simulaneously, or
remotely, whereas PST is a single user file, i.e. if you have outlook open on
your desktop, you can't access it from another PC and you can't allow another
staff member to access any part of your mailbox while you're in it, i.e.
sharing contacts, calendars....
I could probably go on typing for another hour.....
PST, is primary storage for home users, not for businesses.
--
Patrick Rouse
Microsoft MVP - Terminal Server
http://www.sessioncomputing.com
"John" wrote:
We're aware of the performance hit on TS in a virtual environment - this.
isn't that big of one that it's an issue though, nothing too outlandish and
not many users.
PST - what other method would you recommend someone using Outlook 2003 uses
for a POP mail server? As far as I know, PST is the only option.
On 7/7/2006 1:31:26 PM, "Jeff Pitsch" wrote:
Best practice is to not use PST's at all. In fact, PST's over a network is
not even supported by Microsoft. As well, running terminal services in a VM
will reduce performance by quite a bit. It is never recommended to run a
production TS server in as virtual. You will always get better performance
direct from the hardware. I would say you are facing multiple performance
issues and the only 'best practice' way to correct them is to rethink your
infrastructure completely.
Again, PST's not used. Mail should be stored on the exchange server.
Jeff Pitsch
Microsoft MVP - Terminal Server
Forums not enough?
Get support from the experts at your business
http://jeffpitschconsulting.com
"John" <jdean@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:u%23nY8KfoGHA.3936@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
We have a terminal server (windows 2003 standard SP1) that's a virtual
server
on a 2003 SP1 host server.
We're trying to tweak performance, and my question is in regards to disk
access.
I have the physical host box, the virtual terminal server on that, and a
separate file server.
Some users have PST's in the 300 to 500MB range. The file server is
connected
to the host / terminal server box via gigabit, but is it better for
performance to have those PST files locally on the virtual terminal server
or
at least the physical hard drive of it's host machine, where it's
accessible
locally, or should I have it on the file server to help remove some of the
hard disk access on that terminal server?
We're trying to troubleshoot some issues with things being slow, and part
of
the problem is the Tricerat software we had on this thing which just
didn't
work well at all. So we're going to be removing that this weekend and
going
just with policies to lock down the terminal server. But if I have to redo
all of this, I'd like to know where I'd be best off positioning those PST
files.
Thanks for any suggestions or links for whitepapers to read in lieu of
answers.
--
John
--
John
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