Up until about 6 months ago (when .pst files were exiled), we were
successfully using subfile, journaling, OFS on our main fileservers.
Prior to implementing subfiles (which we limited to .pst and Access
databases), we were struggling to push the 800GB-1TB per server per
night in our backup window.  Implementing subfiles dropped the raw
amount to < 200GB, which was manageable.

Lessons learned:
1. use OFS, or you wont backup the open .pst files
2. educate, badger, threaten users to keep .pst files under 1gb.  Pst
files have a habit of corrupting when they get larger than that anyway,
so it is a perfect storm waiting to happen.
3. weekly, cleanup the subfile cache by deleting stale entries (first,
make sure there are no sessions running that might be using the
subfilecache, then execute something like this: "del
\\servername\e$\tsmsubfilecache\.d*")
4. encourage someone to look at implementing email archiving

Steve Schaub
Systems Engineer, WNI
BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee
423-535-6574 (desk)
423-785-7347 (cell)
***public***


-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Paul Zarnowski
Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2008 2:03 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] Backing up PST files

At 12:33 PM 2/14/2008, Del Hoobler wrote:
>The earlier description on subfile backup is not correct.

Thanks Del, Andy, Bill..  I thought I recalled something about this from
one of the technical sessions I attended at SHARE or one of the Oxford
Symposiums.  What you said matches what I had originally thought.

All of this confirms the fact that subfile backup doesn't work for
files >2GB, which leaves me with my problem of how to manage and backup
PST
files, when they can (and will) grow >2GB.  Bill, thanks for your
comments
on this.  I'll pursue ez-extract and try to figure out how it would work
in
our environment.

If anyone else has any ideas on how our users can keep their PST files
below 2GB, or how effectively subfile backup works with <2GB PST files,
I'd
appreciate hearing of them. Thanks.

..Paul



--
Paul Zarnowski                            Ph: 607-255-4757
Manager, Storage Services                 Fx: 607-255-8521
719 Rhodes Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853-3801    Em: psz1 AT cornell DOT edu
Please see the following link for the BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee E-mail 
disclaimer:  http://www.bcbst.com/email_disclaimer.shtm

Please see the following link for the BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee E-mail 
disclaimer:  http://www.bcbst.com/email_disclaimer.shtm