Archiving Email (Exchange Server)

[Slipstick]

Share your thoughts on best practices for Archiving Exchange server email.

An administrator recently asked:

"Do you encourage employees to archive on a yearly, quarterly or some other time frame basis, or is it based upon volume of messages? Also, for notebook users, do you put the archived folders on their laptops and make a copy to a server for backup/retention purposes?"

[Slipstick]

My response:


First, you need a policy for compliance or discovery and other than the data you are required by law to keep, it should be all or nothing- either keep everything else or delete it.

If you decide you are going to keep the old messages, then you need a proper archiving solution, not a hodgepodge of PST's floating around the network. You should not rely on users to archive the mail.