Backing up Outlook pst onto removable storage ideas

[SeanFL]

Friend of mine that is not very technical called; their machine crashed. Thankfully they had Carbonite. Unfortunately Carbonite didn't backup the outlook pst file, so their email for a few years is gone.

They asked me to build them a new small machine. Planning on an Intel NUC like this one.

I'd like to incorporate an easy system that will automatically copy their PST file to some removable storage in case a future failure crashes the machine. The NUC has a slot for a micro SDXC card. I could put a 64 gig card in and have it backup the documents directory as well as the outlook pst location. The other option would be to have a USB drive plugged into a hub.

Any thoughts?

Secondly, any thoughts on what to use to initiate that backup each day? Is there anything built into Windows 10 or an inexpensive program that will be able to copy it over, even if the PST file is in use?

Thank you for insight and guidance. Sean

 

[Elixer]

Why not use dropbox or OneDrive or GoogleDrive or ... to just sync it?

 

[SeanFL]

Why not use dropbox or OneDrive or GoogleDrive or ... to just sync it?

They have 10-20 GB of email and personal documents, that amount exceeds the free quota of most of those services. I'm also wondering if Carbonite or other online services are having a difficult time backing up the outlook file because outlook was in use all the time.

Found this for automating outlook pst backups and will give it a try: http://www.safepstbackup.com/

 

[sdifox]

Microsd is the wrong medium for backup. Why cant they shut down outlook at the end of the day and just schedule backup in the middle of the night to an external hdd? Get two ext hhd and swap daily.

 

[mikeymikec]

Microsd is the wrong medium for backup

Why do you think that?

 

[sdifox]

Why do you think that?

Reliability. SSD > USB Flash drive > microsd when it comes to retention.

A lot of people into rpi have moved over to usb stick due to corruption. Granted the usage pattern is different but it is a concern.

There is nothing worse than unreliable backup.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

"Outlook.PST" -- This is something to which I paid special attention consistently for the last 20 years.

There had been an Outlook plug-in offered free from Microsoft for Outlook 2003 and 2007. I don't think it works with Outlook 2010 or later. In those earlier versions, you would simply choose the backup location, no less a network drive and folder than local storage.

These days, I back it up two ways, using either Macrium Reflect or Windows server client backup capability, depending on whether the client is Windows 10 or Windows 7. (The server is WHS-2011 using the 2008 R2 kernel and features.)

I'm pretty sure you would have this capability with Macrium Reflect Free. You would simply designate the source and target folders, and schedule a "file and folder" backup as you wish. Of course, if you image the drives on your system with Macrium and schedule them to run automatically, that would also provide you backup with easy access as needed.

Because I've attended to this for so long, I think I have e-mail backups going back to the 1990s.