OST file: A boon in situations of Exchange server crash

Microsoft Outlook works in co-ordination with Microsoft Exchange Server. Organizations that rely on Microsoft infrastructure implement Microsoft Exchange Server for establishing email communication through Outlook. MS Exchange Server stores users’ mailboxes in a database file named Exchange Database (.edb) file.

If something wrong happens to Exchange database file say, the database gets corrupt, Exchange Server gets crashed, or the hard disk where database is stored gets damaged then email communication gets affected until the database is not repopulated.

Damage of the Exchange database file puts a jerk in the life of Outlook users, as they cannot communicate further. Even they cannot access their emails, contacts, notes, to-do-list items, emails stored as drafts, etc. At this moment, if complete backup of Exchange database file is available, then the problem can be fixed without putting much effort. But, the situation can be worse if backup is not available or the backup file has also been damaged.

In that scenario, a wonderful feature of Exchange Server using which it creates a backup copy of users’ mailboxes on their computers works as a boon.

Backup copy of users’ mailboxes is created in the form of Offline Storage Table (OST) file on users’ computers, which contains every email, notes, contacts, journals, attachments, tasks, to-do-list items, drafts, etc. Using OST files stored on users’ computers their emails and other related items can be recovered. The only issue with OST files is they cannot be directly accessed with Outlook because Outlook supports PST files not OST. However, you should not worry about accessing OST with Outlook because OST can be converted into PST and once the OST is converted into PST, it can be opened with MS Outlook.

Here, you might raise a question that how OST can be converted into PST and my answer for that is Kernel for OST to PST conversion tool, which effectively converts OST to PST and gives you access to your valuable emails,  notes, contacts, journals, tasks, to-do-list items, drafts, sent items, attachments, etc. Available as a free evaluation version, Kernel for OST to PST conversion tool offers flexibility to analyze the software features and working. Software supports all versions of MS Exchange Server starting from Exchange Server 5.0 and MS Outlook starting from Outlook 97.

Comments are closed.