Backing up Office Outlook 2003 results in incomplete file

Hi

in Dezember we reported to the German support the following issue without any response till today:

We are backing up Office Outlook 2003 with ATIH2009 / 9646 using "EMail Backup"with options "full backup and no compression" with the result that the file size after successful completion is always only about one half of the outlook.pst file, in one case it was only two third!
Using another tool we see the right file size.

Anyone else seeing a similar issue after comparing the file sizes?

I am very angry about this problem which is in strong contrast to "Acronis Computing with confidence" as well as about the quasi non existing support!

Carlo

 

Re: Backing up Outlook 2003 results always in incomplete tib file

Hi

I am wondering that no other company has ever compared the input and output of the Email Outlook backup after succesful completion of ATIH2009: For us there are only the following reasons of the 50 % discrepancy in file size between outlook.pst and the ...tib file size:

1. Backing up with "No compression" works as with compression

or

2. The result is the greatest disaster for the backup software

Any other ideas?

Every help would be much appreciated

Carlo

 

Hello Carlo,

Thank you for using Acronis True Image

if you still haven't received a response from Acronis Support Department, please let me know the case number.

Thank you.

--

Oleg Lee

 

Re: Backing up Outlook 2003 results always in incomplete tib file

3. Mail in Outlook is stored in an indexed ("database light") format. First there is an index of the mail, and then a data area. What happens when you delete a mail is that it simply deletes the index and zeroes the data. This greatly increases speed, especially with large archives -- the alternative would be to move all the following e-mails to fill up the "hole", and that might mean moving tens of thousands of E-mails. You don't want to wait half an hour after you hit "Delete".

Let's look at an example -- say you have three e-mails:
e-mail 1: Bytes 0-9999
e-mail 2: Bytes 10000-19999
e-mail 3: Bytes 20000-29999

You then delete e-mail #2. You know have:
E-mail 1: Bytes 0-9999
E-mail 3: Bytes 20000-29999

If you then get a new e-mail, and there is a "hole" large enough to fit it, it will go there, instead of being appended.

Now you get a new e-mail coming in, 5000 bytes in size. Your index now reads:
E-mail 1: Bytes 0-9999
E-mail 3: Bytes 20000-29999
E-mail 4: Bytes 10000-14999

If you back it up, a smart backup program won't back up the hole between 15000-19999, because it would only be a waste of space. The result is a backup that's index + 25000 bytes in size instead of index + 30000.

The older the .pst file is, the more holes and wasted space you will have in it. Saving 50% if copying the pst file isn't uncommon.

 

Hi arth1,

thanks for your detailed explanation of one possible cause. I agree that it could be a reason but in our case

1. we always backup a totally reorganized outlook.pst (there are no "holes")

2. we check the backup process with a tool of a competitor

3. we are interested in using ATIH2009 having one tool for all the various backup tasks

Again thanks

Carlo

 

hi Oleg

thanks for your offer.

1. Please note that more than one issue was reported but unfortunately the German support has registered all the issues under the only number 1852240

2. The most important issue is that one of the email backup archive partially completed.

Many thanks

Carlo

 

Have you tried compressing the outlook archive in Outlook and then backing up to see if the copy in the tib backup file is still smaller or about the same size as the original?

I've used ATI many times to backup my partitions and have restored or copied out of a backup file the outlooks psts and never had a problem finding and email.

 

Hello shieber

thanks for your comment.

1. What kind of compression for the outlook archive (= outlook.pst?) do you mean?

2. We daily compress "Outlook 2003" with its own function before ATIH2009 backup.

3. When we backup the file outlook.pst itself with ATIH2009 the created tib file does not differ in size! But using ATIH2009 Email Backup there is the difference mentioned. We have also tested it on 3 different hard disks.

4. We are interested in a daily "logical Outlook backup" not in an image backup (only once a week)

5. Using another tool doing "logical Outlook backup" the file sizes do not differ!

6. Also to mention that there is a "strange behaviour" of the duration and completion bars of ATIH2009. Further the duration of the ATIH2009 Email backup (producing half size file) is much longer than that one of the competitors tool.

7. Of course there are further ideas for tests. We do not want to gamble with our data! We want an answer from Acronis! They should test it.

THX
Carlo

 

Shieber

I forgot to mention that we do not archive nor autoarchive any elements in Outlook

Carlo

 

This is almost certainly because the other tool doesn't really do a *logical* copy of the .pst file, but simply a *physical* copy.

Have you tried making a copy of your .pst file, then use Acronis to back the original up, then restore it? Are any e-mails actually missing?

 

We did not restore it because the file sizes are "equal" > therefore it is very unlikely that any emails have "disappeared".

Carlo

 

The progress bars haven't worked right since ATI supported Vista back a version or two ago.


It's not the only program that has problem accurately reporting program progress since supporting Vista. Coincidence? hmmm. . . . . In any event, it's just one of the warts you have to ignore if you're going to use the program

 

I meant the archive compression that you do manually under Options, Mail Set up, Data Files, Settings, Compact Now (that's in OUtlook 2003) -- it's in a slightly diff place in each other verison of Outlook, which is MS's way to keep users on their toes.

 

We are running W XP and all the progress bars work fine except for Email backup!

 

It's unclear what is the root of the problem but I'm guessing it has something to do with how the program was changed to accomdate Vista.

Since the Vista-supporitng verisons, under xp and vista, version 11 and 12/2009 are widely reportedly to have problems with the progress bars.

I've had the best luck with a simple, My data Backup. Drive Backups, especially with more than one partiton and the progress bar might read the same for nearly the entire backup or work okay for the first partition and then remain unchanged when the first partition completes and for the duration of the second partition.

Even for single partition backups, the bars can show near paralysis.

 

Important hints to be seen regarding our outlook backup problem as well as the progress bars

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=232184