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tommls
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Restore Exchange mail(box) from PST file??

Post by tommls »

Can Veeam import/restore an Exchange Server PST file containing someone's mailbox?? or enable looking inside a PST file??

Or do I have to import the PST into Exchange using Exchange itself, then use Veeam to recover something??

I'm looking at the topic of storing departed staff's mailboxes as PST files for access whenever necessary.

I know I could create a new temporary mailbox with that staff's name and ID and import the PST but I want to know what Veeam can do with existing PST files...import?? read?? what??

I'm also looking at doing separate backups of just the volumes containing the .edb files and the .log files.
Is this a safe method to follow for if I must restore something email that is say 5 years old or more and I have a new/different Exchange version than the older backed-up mailbox database?? (I would always have recent backups of the current Exchange server plus archived backups of the older Exchange servers.)

Right now I'm doing monthly and yearly archives of the Exchange server but that's not a lot...

I was sort of thinking out loud as I typed this, please request whatever clarifications you like...

Thank you, Tom
vClintWyckoff
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Re: Restore Exchange mail(box) from PST file??

Post by vClintWyckoff »

Well Tom, the best bet for getting a consistent backup of transactional applications like Exchange, SQL, Active Directory...etc. is to use Application Aware Image Processing. This will invoke VSS inside of the Guest Operating System and properly place the applicatoin - in this case Exchange - in a consistent state to be backed up correctly. Veeam will handle the log truncation, so all will be good with Exchange. This will allow you to perform individual item level recovery from your Exchange environment using Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Exchange (VEX).

There's an entire help thread here - https://helpcenter.veeam.com/backup/exp ... h_vex.html - and MANY other forum threads on how to backup Exchange correctly.

Outlook is likely the best tool for opening PST files for offline viewing if that was your process of off-boarding an employee. In a previous life we used to Export said users mailbox to a PST and provide it to their Manager upon request only. Otherwise if you needed historical restoration, you would have Veeam restore points on disk to refer to and drill into the said users mailbox. Now, VEX uses the actual Exchange database file and log files for individual item level recovery. It's also worth noting that VEX CAN export your mailboxes out to PST format.
ekisner
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Re: Restore Exchange mail(box) from PST file??

Post by ekisner »

As a PST isn't really a Veeam file, nor is it a backup file, it doesn't seem relevant to Veeam to be using that to pull emails out of it. It makes more sense to simply attach the PST file to the requesting staff member's mail client, let them review the contents, and then detach it.

If you store the PSTs on a separate bit of storage, you could just use forever incremental backups on that storage, and you'd never have to back up the same data twice.
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