Ballooning .pst Files

[Kevin Sprinkel]

We are a small office (<15 people) who has recently
converted to a file server network. Some of our .pst
files are ballooning as high as 1 GB, which our network
consultants tell us could result in serious performance
issues.

Can anyone tell me what steps and/or settings we can make
to minimize the sizes of these files? Is there, for
example, is there a function similar to Access' Compact
and Repair available?

Thank you for all assistance.

Kevin Sprinkel

 

[Craft]

Tools -> Services -> Personal Folders, properties ->
Compact Now will make the PST file as small as possible
(although if the file is 1GB it may take a while to run).

I've worked with large (1GB+) PST files quite a bit, and
have noticed basically no drop in performance, i.e. file
access times; I'm not sure what your 'consultants' are
talking about. However, you DO want to keep the files
under 2GB, as MS actually designed Outlook to overwrite
the headers in PST files when the files reach 2GB,
rendering the files unreadable (smart move, Billy).

Craft

 

[DL]

Did'nt I read a reccommendation from MS not to use pst file in a network?

 

[Jason]

Thank you for all assistance.

Kevin Sprinkel

Upgrade to 2003 to take advantage of larger pst file support.

You will need to create a new pst file and copy the old contents over.

 

[Kevin Sprinkel]

Thanks Craft, DL, & Jason