Exporting mailboxes to pst to minimize down time during move

okay, this is a crazy scheme, so I am in desperate need of some input from you guys.

As I have mentioned in another post, we are going to be moving some mailboxes from one server to another across a wan link. We would like to do this, as usual, with minimal impact on the users. Some of these users however (read:owners of the company) have mailboxes in the 8-10 gig range. To move this over a wan link would take kind of forever. So, my thoughts on minimizing impact to the user was to export the vast majority of the data in the mailbox to a pst. Then move the now slimmed-down mailbox to the new server. We could then physically transfer the pst file on removable media to the new location and merge it back into the mailbox.

Whew.

thats some nonsense right there. what do you guys think?

John

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Comments

Mishra

How fast is your WAN link?

blargoe

And what version of Exchange?

cnfuzzd

Source network has a T1, using a hardware VPN connection to a DSL connection that has advertised speeds of 10mb.

Both servers would be Exchange 2003 ent.

John

royal

It sounds fine really. Only issue would be how fast you can physically transfer the files. If it's far, you'll be without mailbox data for a period of time.

Use exmerge to export data to a .pst. Burn PST files to a CD/DVD and then UPS/Fedex/DHL/USPS those to the target location. Again, your users may be without data for a period of time. If the location isn't that far, drive it over and begin the import process once you get there. Move the mailboxes upon arrival of the CD/DVDs. Use exmerge to import data to a .pst.