General Issues related to Outlook PST file

PST file is used in Microsoft Outlook to store email messages, calendar items and other mailbox items. As we have read in previous post that the PST files are stored on individual work stations rather than on a centralized server so, they can lead to many risks and issues for you.

PST File General Issues:

• While using PST file you may have to deal with various issues, such as:

• When you are unable to access your PST file using remote access applications like OWA (Outlook Web Access) or Mobile phones because you have removed and it is no longer be available on the server.

• Storage of PST files can take up a lot of space on your local Computer or a shared server depending on where you store them. Thus, leading to wastage of storage space.

• There is no built-in tool in Exchange Server and Microsoft Outlook that may help you to centrally manage the storage and use of PST file. Additionally, .PST files reside on a workstation's local hard drive. You can configure MS Outlook to store a .PST file on a network drive but in this case network problems can result in .PST file corruption. Storing .PST files in local hard drive means lost data if a hard drive failed.

• PST files provide the perfect mechanism for users to transfer sensitive information out of an organization. Exposing sensitive data out of the organization can be a larger threat than data loss. Even if you prohibit the use of .PST files, a user could still leak information out of the organization. Thus, it creates a threat for organization.

• When a .pst file approaches its maximum limit, there is a significant drop in Outlook’s performance. In some cases, Outlook may freeze up when you click on any message or folder. As your PST file approaches the limit or suggested maximum size, you can move old messages to a separate archive PST file or delete them. There are many software tools available in market that help to deal with the problems caused by increased size of PST file.

In this article I have discussed the general issues associated with the use of PST file. While using PST file, you need to take care about PST file size limit to prevent it from corruption. Besides it, there can be other physical and logical reasons for PST file corruption. You may need a third party tool to deal with such situations and to recover your corrupted PST file. In my next article I will share the causes of PST corruption and ways to recover your corrupted PST file.