Recipe 11.1. Backing Up an Individual Mailbox Problem You need to back up one or more mailboxes without backing up the databases that contain them. Solution Using a graphical user interface Download the ExMerge utility from the Exchange Server 2003 tools page (http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/downloads/2003.asp). You can use this version of ExMerge with any version of Exchange, but you must run it on an Exchange Server 2003 server or a machine with the Exchange Server 2003 version of ESM installed. Install it according to the directions in the Mailbox Merge Wizard (ExMerge) documentation. Launch ExMerge. At the welcome screen, click Next. Select the Extract or Import (Two Step Procedure) radio button on the Procedure Selection page and click Next. On the Two Step Procedure page, make sure the Step 1: Extract data from an Exchange Server Mailbox radio button is selected and click Next. On the Source Server page, supply the name of the Exchange server where the mailbox is housed. You can optionally specify a DC and port number to use when looking up the account of the user whose mailbox you're backing up; doing so speeds up name resolution somewhat. Click the Options button; this displays the Data Selection Criteria dialog box. On the Data tab, make sure that all of the checkboxes are marked if you want to back up all contents of the mailbox, including hidden items like rules and items in the "dumpster" (the container used to hold items after they're removed from Deleted Items until the retention period is reached). Optionally, on the Folders tab, you can specify folders you want skipped. You might, for example, exclude the Sent Items or Deleted Items folders. Optionally, use the Dates tab to set a date range for the backup. By default, all messages in the mailbox will be included. Optionally, use the Message Details tab to tell ExMerge that you only want messages that have specified subjects or attachment names. This option was originally introduced to allow you to mass-remove messages infected with the ILOVEYOU and Melissa viruses, but it can come in handy in other circumstances too.
Once you've set up the selection criteria you want, click OK to dismiss the Data Selection Criteria dialog box, and then click Next. On the Database Selection page, select the databases that contain the mailboxes you're backing up, and then click Next. Be prepared to wait a minute while ExMerge gathers the list of mailboxes in those databases. On the Mailbox Selection page, select the mailboxes you want to back up and click Next. On the Locale Selection page, pick the locale you want ExMerge to use when it connects to the mailbox. If you choose a specific locale when you're importing mailboxes, the standard folders (Inbox, Tasks, Calendar, Sent Items, Deleted Items, Journal, and Notes) will be created with names in that locale's language. For mailbox backups, you should check the Use last mailbox login locale checkbox to ensure that a consistent locale is used. Click Next. On the Target Directory page, select the folder where you want the extracted mailbox data to go. Each mailbox's data will be placed in a separate Outlook personal folders (PST) file. Click Next. On the Save Settings page, you may optionally choose to save the current settings, which you can then use in the future. Click Next to actually start backing up the mailboxes. Click Finish once ExMerge finishes. Take the PST files generated by ExMerge and back them up using your preferred backup method.
Discussion Individual mailbox backups (also known as "brick-level" backups) are a hassle for two primary reasons. First, they're slow. All existing mailbox-level backup tools use MAPI, which means that they're pokey compared to ordinary backups. Second, they're bloated. When you do a brick-level backup, the backup utility has to back up every message in the mailbox, and single instance storage can't be maintained across multiple mailboxes. That means that backing up two mailboxes with many messages in common can require nearly twice as much space as the equivalent amount of data in a database backup. The bigger issue is that, for most purposes, they're unnecessary. The three most common cited reasons for doing brick-level backups already have other, easier-to-use alternatives: If your user accidentally deletes an item they need, they can recover it themselves provided that you've turned on deleted item retention (see MS KB 822938). If you accidentally delete a mailbox, you can recover it from the deleted mailbox retention container, as described in Recipe 5.9. In Exchange Server 2003, you can use the Mailbox Recovery Center (see Recipe Recipe 11.10). If the mailbox becomes damaged or corrupted, you can restore it from an ordinary backup using the instructions in Recipe 11.8.
Accordingly, Microsoft doesn't provide direct support for mailbox-level backups in their own backup tool; most third-party backup vendors include it. See Also Recipes Recipe 11.2 and Recipe 11.3 for backing up database and storage groups, Recipe 11.8 for recovering one mailbox from a database or storage group, and Recipe 11.10 for using the Mailbox Recovery Center |
