Monday, March 16, 2009

Easy access to .edb/.stm files via Ontrack PowerControls

Ehlo All,

So, I recently upgraded to Exchange 2007, and realized one day I might need access to my old Exchange 2003 data. Even though I performed move mailboxes for most accounts, I didn't did it for all. I figured, I should save the databases, .edb & .stm files "just in case". Well, the "just in case" time came almost one month later after my upgrade.

So, while I run AppAssure's MailRetriever which is designed to mount offline Exchange 2003/2007 databases, it's at my datacenter and I had the .edb/.stm files at my home office. I considered transfering the files, but they are close to 40GBs, so I decided to test out under a virtual machine Ontrack's PowerControls. So, I fired up my handy VMware Workstation 6.5 & XP Pro w/Office 2003 and mounted over a 100Mb network via UNC/drive the folder share containing the files. Once mapping to a drive letter, the .edb/.stm files quickly and easily exported the data (some task items) to a PST. Opening the 23GB .edb w/o logs took about 15 seconds which was mindblowing which was OVER a network connection. I then tested the PST data in Outlook which looked good and compressed it and emailed the 1.3Mb off to the user that needed it. That's it. It was so easy, I was shocked. It literally took me maybe 10 minutes if that long.

Overall, Ontrack's PowerControls software package is very impressive.

-Ben

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