Backing Up .pst, POP Outlook 2010 +2013

[zorak16]

Hello all,
I have several coworkers (our account managers) who need their .pst files backed up. They were not setup as IMAP, nor were they configured to leave message copies on the server, so very little of their emails are backed up. None of them are aware of that. They think their email works similar to gmail and that all their emails are magically backed up to our email providers server. For whatever reason, our email provider highly recommends setting up our work PCs as POP and our smartphones with IMAP. Is that a good idea? Personally, I think setting up everything as IMAP with it configured to leave a copy of each email on the server is the superior solution. Besides offline availability and potential security, I don't see any benefits POP has over IMAP. Plus, if we download everything off the server with it setup as IMAP, don't we receive the best of both POP and IMAP?

More important, how would you go about backing up the .pst file? We have a local server that I want to backup the .pst files to, but I am afraid backing it up over the network. I understand that .pst files are prone to errors/corruption when they are auto archived over a network, but is it safe to simply backup the .pst file itself to the local server like any other file? I intend to schedule backups, using the Windows backup system, to create a weekly backup of each account manager's .pst to our local network

Thanks in advance,
Zorak!!

 

[boosted1g]

Everything should be IMAP, if you have your PCs as POP and smarthphones as IMAP then you don't get any sent email on the PC that was sent from the phone. Now hopefully your email provider provides IMAP support. Best route would be IMAP on PCs and phones, and backup the .pst anyway in case the email provider has a server crash.

You can simply backup the .pst file.
I never liked windows backup because it is so clunky and has so few of options so I use third party software for most of my clients
I use syncback to do incremental file backups. From syncback you can tell it to auto-close outlook before it runs, thus allowing you to copy the .pst file, Another option is to schedule pc to log off say 10 min before syncback runs.
I then use macrium reflect to do disk images of client PCs (you have to get the paid version to use on Server OS). The one downside to the free version of macrium is that it wont limit the number of disk images, my solution is to have syncback on close run a .bat file I made that will clear out all but the 4 newest images.

 

[zorak16]

What would happen if I copy the .pst to a backup location while they are actively using their email and downloading new emails? My idea would be to have them copy the .pst file to a network drive towards the end of their day (maybe 4pm on Friday).

 

[boosted1g]

You wont be able to copy the file while outlook is running

You want to either log the computer off or have a program like syncback auto close the program.
You cant trust clients to close the program on their own you need to manually do it.

 

[zorak16]

Fair enough. I'll choose your first response as the answer. Thank you for the advice!