Ideas on preventing E'rage database corruption

[Pitch]

As the new OS Tiger is about to arrive any day, I find myself thinking
about backups, data protection, etc. I usually take major OS upgrades
as a time to zero the main drive, do a clean install, and reinstall all
of my applications. I know: quite an overkill in most people's eyes,
but I actually enjoy the process, and only do it about every 18-24
months.

Regarding Entourage 2004, I am re-examining how I backup, avoid
corruption, keep a clean mean Identity, etc. I would like to hear how
many of you long-time E'rage experts are doing this these days. Here is
my own admittedly hacked-together unprofessional method:

1. around January first of each year, I Command-D duplicate my Identity
folder. I name the old one "2004 ID", e.g., and I mentally know that
this contains contains everything from 2004 and back.

2. I rename the new one "2005 ID". I then proceed to strip it down in
size. I do this through a few steps:
a. I open up Deletes, sort by Category, and delete the categories that
I don't want. This includes my categories of Junk, NewsGroups, and any
others I don't think I will need to look at.
b. In Deletes, I also delete any emails older than about 18 months.
c. In Deletes, I sort by size, and remove any large attachments that I
don't think I'd ever want to look at again.

d. In Sent, I do a similar process as I did with the Deletes.
e. Last, I do a Find on the entire Identity, and search for emails that
are older than about 18 months, as well as extra large attachments, and
see if there are any I don't mind deleting.

3. Once I have this stripped down 2005 Identity, I then Command-D
duplicate it (in case something goes wrong in the rebuild), and then
rebuild it.

4. I have an Office notification that notifies me four times a year:
"backup the Identity." I simply close Entourage and Command-D the
Identity, changing the name to include the date. I keep about two years
worth of these, and delete the ones older than 2 years.

Other notes on my E'rage habits:
·· every email has a Category. Very few end up with "None." This
makes culling much easier.
·· All new emails come in through my Inbox.
·· I use Bryan Harris' absolutely brilliant "Postpone, delayed
send" script religiously. For anyone utilizing the methodologies of GTD
(Getting Things Done), it's a must have. Although I get an average of
80 emails a day (online orders, friends, inquiries, business/pleasure,
everything), and all of them coming in through the Inbox, I keep my
Inbox well below 20. It is often completely empty at least once a week.
(check http://www.scriptbuilders.net for scripts)
·· I replace any Hard Drive that's older than 2 or 3 years. This
alleviates a lot of HD crash fears for me.


That's it. Again, I'd love to hear how you all are protecting your
Entourage 2004 databases.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Again, I'd love to hear how you all are protecting your

Entourage 2004 databases.

I have a script that duplicates my Main Identity to a Backups folder
whenever I run it (along with some other important prefs-type files). I try
to run this every day in case of corruption, but it tends to be more like
every few days. Every so often I Archive this Backups folder to condense
it. Sometimes I burn it to CD, but usually I delete it after a while, since
the point is to have a relatively up-to-date version that I can just go back
to if something corrupts. My database has corrupted only once, a couple
months after I switched to OS X/Ent 2004, and at that one point I found it
easier to go back to yesterday's identity and redownload messages than to
use the rebuilt database that Ent offered me (maybe because I wanted to keep
the "show reply" links, etc--I don't remember now).

I'm sure this is not the best method, just the one I wound up with. My
database is about a gig, so this takes a little time, but is not painful.
It would be better if I ran it on a daily schedule, and if I had a large
external drive to back it up to. It would probably also be better if at
regular intervals I borrowed your technique of regularly switching to a
cleaned-out identity. Hmm, maybe I'll go do that now.....

 

[matt neuburg]

c. In Deletes, I sort by size, and remove any large attachments that I
don't think I'd ever want to look at again.

d. In Sent, I do a similar process as I did with the Deletes.
e. Last, I do a Find on the entire Identity, and search for emails that
are older than about 18 months, as well as extra large attachments, and
see if there are any I don't mind deleting.

I don't see why the database should contain *any* attachments. These can
only do harm, it seems to me.

4. I have an Office notification that notifies me four times a year:
"backup the Identity." I simply close Entourage and Command-D the
Identity, changing the name to include the date. I keep about two years
worth of these, and delete the ones older than 2 years.

You do a lot of talking about duplicating the database, but it is a
database - it's in a proprietary format. If Entourage broke, how would
you get at the data. Nowhere do you mention exporting all your old mail
to text files; yet that is the most reliable way to back up. m.

 

[Mickey Stevens]

Since you're using Entourage 2004, you should also see the "Avoid Database
Corruption" section of
<http://home.earthlink.net/~mickey.stevens/tutorials/rebuilddatabase.html>