Backing up Outlook PST files
I’m currently obsessed with all things backup related.
On Dave’s suggestion, I installed Second Copy and have it doing incremental copies of all my data to the second HDD. (I’m not thrilled with its interface or error handling and it seems a little buggy, but whatever…)
One problem with this whole automated backup scheme is locked files. Most notably Outlook’s .PST file. I searched Outlook help regarding backups and found this entry about the Outlook Personal Folders Backup Tool. On install, it creates a “Backup…” menu item where you can setup regular backups. Unfortunately, you have to quit Outlook in order to backup its own file… 
I usually have Outlook running all the time, but usually shut it down once a week. Better than nothing.
February 13th, 2005 at 1:59 am
If you or dave figure out a better automatic backup solution than Second Copy or the scary RAID route, let me know. I still haven’t totally given up on RAID, since that’s basically all my little Mini-ITX box will be. Or the Linksys NAS basestation is a nice option too.
February 13th, 2005 at 9:59 am
I’ve dumped Second Copy. Instead, I’ll use Windows Backup (aka NTBackup) to run scheduled daily backups (full backup once a week and incremental daily backups). Windows Backup can handle open and locked files.
If you’re running Windows XP Home, you can install Backup off of the install disk in \Valueadd\msft\ntbackup. Just don’t use the Automated System Recovery wizard with XP Home.
The RAID option isn’t scary — I just don’t have hardware support for it. With RAID 1, you will take a performance hit for writes (all data has to be written twice), and that will be even worse with a software RAID controller.
February 13th, 2005 at 7:32 pm
Wow it took you less than 12 hours to dump Second Copy. I wasn’t all that thrilled with it either, but that was because it didn’t handle my ill-configured SAMBA network drives (running on my BSD server) very gracefully. I was going to switch to something non-Windows that could run on my server, I think rsync was one of them. Unfortunately I have too many projects on my list now and that is fairly low on my list.
Besides, my free backup service (dad + his USB HDD) just arrived from BC and he’s taking yet another incremental copy of all my family photos back home.
February 20th, 2005 at 11:11 pm
RAID1 aka Mirroring via software is a viable option with XP..