The Problem with PST Files in 2020

Written by Quadrotech Guest Blogger
November 30, 2020

The shift to remote work has raised the risk level for PST files, especially when it comes to compliance.

your organization ever needs to comply with a discovery order.

Policy problems: PST files commonly break message retention policies enforced by enterprise organizations, as they exist in shadowy darkness that isn’t easily detectable.

Corruptible and irreparable: As PSTs are commonly stored locally with no routine backup, the risk of corrupted data is high. This also prevents the sharing of files between multiple users. PSTs are also notoriously unreliable (they were never intended to store large amounts of data long-term), and there are many ways they can become corrupt.

Helpdesk demands: If you’re an IT admin, PST files can cause numerous problems, with frequent requests to repair corrupt data or locate missing files. Backup maintenance is also a strain on time, and all of this old-school administrative effort is a drain on costs and resources.

Device dependency: PSTs are only accessible by the device they’re stored on, meaning there’s no remote access. Recent global events have shed a light on this particular pain point, as PST users have been unable to access critical data while working from home.

Top Tips for PST Migration

IT teams are increasingly being tasked to find, centralize and–if not required for eDiscovery–delete PST files. Over the years, we’ve conducted numerous PST migration projects to migrate PST to Office 365 (or On-prem Exchange or Enterprise Vault), and we have a wealth of expertise in this arena.

In our experience, the average size of PST files is around 2GB, so when you multiply this by the number of staff in your organization, you can see how the total size of PST files can easily surpass several terabytes. Accordingly, this will have a huge impact on restore times and storage requirements.

If 2020 is the year you’re finally planning to tackle your PST problem, please watch one of our on-demand webinars or contact us for more information.

This guest blog is part of a Channel Futures sponsorship.