Size of OST & PST Files After Old Message Deletion Policy Implemen

[Scott]

For years our organization has had no limits on mailbox size. We are running
Exch 03 SP2 Enterprise on Server03 R2 SP1. Soon we will be setting a
recipient policy which deletes all messages after 3 months. When that policy
is implemented, will that automatically result in a significant decrease in
the size of .pst files and, for those on cached exchange mode, also
automatically reduce the size of .ost files? If not, is it necessary to run
some type of compression to reduce the size? How can that be done most
efficiently in an organization with over a thousand mailboxes?
The reason we are concerned is that we want cached exchange mode to work
more effectively and we believe a major driver of that is to realize major
reductions in the size of .pst and .ost files. We understand we will have to
do an offline defrag of the information store to recover disk white space on
the Exchange server itself.
Scott

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Mailbox and public folder data is in .ost files, not .pst files, unless users have seriously messed up their profiles. The type of clean-up that you're referring to is generally server-based, not client-based, so it will not affect any .pst files. Outlook will automatically compact .ost files as background processing time is available. Not using a screen saver is a good idea.
--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers