« What is Awesome at the WWDC | Main | May NPD Game Console Sales Figures »

So last night, I was talking to some folks at Dave's about Entourage, and of course the big complaint, which is "Entourage is hard to back up, why don't they use separate files...". Well, setting aside the fact that backing up databases just suck, and there's really no good way to do it, even at the high end. Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, doesn't matter, backing things that base themselves on really large files that change in minor ways a lot just sucks.

However, there are ways to deal with Entourage's data that will help it to not suck. Now, this will not get you a perfect restore. For that, you really do need to back up the database. However, it should allow you to perhaps back it up less often.

The trick? Enable Sync Services in Entourage via Preferences:Sync Services. When you do that, Entourage syncs Contacts, Events, Tasks and Notes into the Truth, so that it can be then sync'd with other applications. So backing up those applications, along with the Sync Services data will allow you to restore that information into Entourage should you have to blow out the Entourage database. The bugaboo here is mail. The only way to really back up mail is to have it live on the server, ala IMAP or Exchange, and that can be a pain for a lot of organizations. The only way other than that to really deal with it is to export your mail every so often. It's not as mindless as Sync Services, but it's better than nothing.

So, there, a quickie on another way to deal with Entourage data.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Entourage, Backups, Sync Services

Comments