Right now, I am involved in a very challenging email migration and network infrastructure upgrade project for a section of users in our corporate network. So far, one huge obstacle during the project has been several large orphaned OST files. In order to make the historical mailbox data of our users accessible, these orphaned OST files need to be converted back to PST files.
Due to some unexpected changes on our local servers, the large orphaned OST files became disconnected from the user profile on the active Exchange Server. There is no way to access these files using Outlook. The data in these local caches is essential to our business, therefore, the uncorrupted recovery of these orphaned files is our highest priority.
So far, I have been doing some of the manual recovery methods. These methods have been very tedious and have a high failure rate. For example, trying to recreate the Outlook profiles or even trying to do an export from the application has resulted in consistent time-outs and intermittent MAPI errors. In addition, manual transfer methods have a high failure rate, especially when dealing with large data sets, which results in incomplete folder trees and loss of metadata.
In order to deal with this workflow in a more efficient manner, I looked into some of the options available in the market and found the Recoveryfix OST to PST conversion tool (https://www.recoveryfix.com/ost-to-pst-converter/) which seemed like a perfect option that addresses this challenge.
Before buying licenses and committing the team to the software, I'd like to use the combined knowledge of the community. If you can, please provide feedback based on your experiences with this software. In particular, I would like answers to the following questions:
What is the software's performance handling large data loads? Some of the OST files we are aiming to target exceed 25GB to 30GB. How does the utility behave with large mailbox loads? Does it have a freezing or crashing behavior?
What is the software's behavior with the data structure? Is the software able to maintain the original folder structure and hierarchy with deep and complex structures? Is the software able to maintain email metadata? Specifically, how do embedded attachments, CC and BCC email fields, read and unread email states, and timestamps of emails are preserved?
How does the software handle corruption? Does the utility allow OST files with minor corruption, or does it require a healthy file?
Has anyone on the forum used the utility in production? I'm eager to know your thoughts on the efficiency. Also, if you know of other utilities that are considered industry standard, I'd love to hear about them.
Thank you very much for your deep knowledge and assistance.
Due to some unexpected changes on our local servers, the large orphaned OST files became disconnected from the user profile on the active Exchange Server. There is no way to access these files using Outlook. The data in these local caches is essential to our business, therefore, the uncorrupted recovery of these orphaned files is our highest priority.
So far, I have been doing some of the manual recovery methods. These methods have been very tedious and have a high failure rate. For example, trying to recreate the Outlook profiles or even trying to do an export from the application has resulted in consistent time-outs and intermittent MAPI errors. In addition, manual transfer methods have a high failure rate, especially when dealing with large data sets, which results in incomplete folder trees and loss of metadata.
In order to deal with this workflow in a more efficient manner, I looked into some of the options available in the market and found the Recoveryfix OST to PST conversion tool (https://www.recoveryfix.com/ost-to-pst-converter/) which seemed like a perfect option that addresses this challenge.
Before buying licenses and committing the team to the software, I'd like to use the combined knowledge of the community. If you can, please provide feedback based on your experiences with this software. In particular, I would like answers to the following questions:
What is the software's performance handling large data loads? Some of the OST files we are aiming to target exceed 25GB to 30GB. How does the utility behave with large mailbox loads? Does it have a freezing or crashing behavior?
What is the software's behavior with the data structure? Is the software able to maintain the original folder structure and hierarchy with deep and complex structures? Is the software able to maintain email metadata? Specifically, how do embedded attachments, CC and BCC email fields, read and unread email states, and timestamps of emails are preserved?
How does the software handle corruption? Does the utility allow OST files with minor corruption, or does it require a healthy file?
Has anyone on the forum used the utility in production? I'm eager to know your thoughts on the efficiency. Also, if you know of other utilities that are considered industry standard, I'd love to hear about them.
Thank you very much for your deep knowledge and assistance.