PST, OST and OAB on fast LAN - really unsupported/problematic?

[Alan]

Hello,

I recently read that putting the PST (and presumably the OST and OAB
files?) on a network share is not supported by MS because it can lead
to corruption of those files, plus adds a significant network overhead.

Does that really happen in real-life deployments? Has anyone seen data
corruption on a fast (100mb - 1gb) LAN?

We have a few thousand users on our LAN and we're going to migrate them
to Outlook soon. At a guess, 10% or more would roam internally. Running
in Classic Online mode isn't a problem but my boss wants to provide PST
access at least on their "home PC" until a central archiving system is
installed later on.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

- Alan.

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

In

Hello,

I recently read that putting the PST (and presumably the OST and OAB
files?) on a network share is not supported by MS because it can lead
to corruption of those files, plus adds a significant network
overhead.

Yep. http://support.microsoft.com/?id=297019
And think about it - what would be the point of putting an OST file (cached
mode or otherwise) on a non-local drive? Same with an offline address book?
That won't help if they're truly offline - and gawd, think of the disk space
you'd be chewing up.

Does that really happen in real-life deployments? Has anyone seen data
corruption on a fast (100mb - 1gb) LAN?
Yep.

We have a few thousand users on our LAN and we're going to migrate
them to Outlook soon.

From what? And to what? You imply that you'll be using Exchange, and I will
infer that you are going to Exchange 2003 enterprise.

At a guess, 10% or more would roam internally.

PST files are probably not going to work for you - and definitely won't work
well for those users. You *might* have luck; you might not. Those wouldn't
be good enough odds for me considering the size of your user base.

Running in Classic Online mode

I'm not sure what you mean - I guess you mean you won't use cached mode?
That has nothing to do with this. And I would definitely use cached mode!

isn't a problem but my boss wants to
provide PST access at least on their "home PC" until a central
archiving system is installed later on.

That is a bad plan, in my book. Your network is too big to do this
piecemeal - you need to do some planning & budgeting before you even start
this process. Unless you mean you will put it there and not support it at
all - it's at the user's risk that they use it.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

- Alan.

I think you should look into ditching PST files entirely.
See
http://www.exchangefaq.org/faq/Exchange-5.5/Why-PST-=-BAD-/q/Why-PST-=-BAD/qid/1209

 

[Justin - SYNACS]

Is it safe to say that your users are currently in a mixed Outlook,
Outlook Express and other environment?

 

[Alan]

Thanks for the advice!

By "Classic Online" mode I meant not checking the "enable offline mode"
in the mailbox setup pages, thus avoiding OST/OAB use entirely, but
still allowing PSTs.

We're migrating from a non-MS mailsystem to E2k3, the client will
either be Outlook 2002/XP or Outlook 2003 (Office XP is currently
deployed and won't be upgraded to Office 2003).

I've mentioned to my boss that PSTs and roaming access is not supported
but wanted to check that it has actually caused problems in real-world
deployments.

As usual, the best technical solution is at odds with what the boss
wants.

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

In

Thanks for the advice!

By "Classic Online" mode I meant not checking the "enable offline
mode" in the mailbox setup pages, thus avoiding OST/OAB use entirely,
but still allowing PSTs.

Cached mode in OL2003 is wonderful, in my book. Wouldn't dream of not using
it. (it does use an OST file in the background, but it's seamless to the
client).

You really *don't* want to keep PSTs in the picture, conversely. I guess
your company has a decision to make as to how much of the user's old data
they plan to migrate / support. Outside of calendar/contacts/tasks/notes and
some subset of mail items, perhaps the rest can just become a locally stored
archive for the user to access (which will not roam, and will not be
supported at all by IT staff).

We're migrating from a non-MS mailsystem to E2k3, the client will
either be Outlook 2002/XP or Outlook 2003 (Office XP is currently
deployed and won't be upgraded to Office 2003).

It should be, honestly. You get a license to run OL2003 for each license of
Exchange you've got - and it is so far beyond better than XP I would
definitely want to use it.

I've mentioned to my boss that PSTs and roaming access is not
supported but wanted to check that it has actually caused problems in
real-world deployments.

As usual, the best technical solution is at odds with what the boss
wants.

I've probably worked for the dude. Let me guess; you have three hours to
complete this migration, and the budget for Exchange hardware was
approximately $450 USD, right? ;-)