PST (Personal Storage Tables) can be a nuisance and a cause of some difficulties. There are plenty of how-to’s out there on how to manage them, tweak them, and manipulate them, but the best strategy of all is to avoid them altogether.

The PST files can be stored either on the Exchange server or locally. The immediate advantage of local storage of the PST files is that it provides an easy and readily accessible location for old emails. But although a great many email environments are set up for local storage of PST files, it goes without saying that the local storage option is a bad idea that offers very little in the way of protection against disaster, loss, or attack.

However, with more companies falling under the purview of one or more compliance-related legislative mandates, usage of PST files must be revisited. If there is a retention requirement that calls for storing emails for a certain period of time, it’s pretty easy to get around that requirement. Electronic discovery may also be a problem if PST files are used and stored locally, even temporarily.

By itself, although PST files are password-protected, this protection is somewhat flimsy, and there are numerous hacker tools available that can be used to easily remove the password on a PST.

Rather, the better option is a third-party archiving solution that works with Microsoft Exchange which delivers superior data security, as well as non-local storage that is readily accessible by authorized users.