Home > Why use PSTCompactor?

Anybody who uses PST files, even home users, can benefit from PSTCompactor time and time again. Daily, companies around the world receive tens of thousands of emails, most of which end up sitting in the Inbox's of their staff. For companies who choose to use PST's, this represents an unmanageable, ever growing problem. PSTCompactor addresses this problem in two ways: by recovering wasted space and by removing unwanted content.

Recovering Wasted Space

Once a PST file grows in size, it does not shrink back down on its own - no matter how many messages are deleted. Even after emptying the Deleted Items folder, a 700mb PST file is still 700mb. Only when the computer is idle, with the user logged in and Outlook open will the PST file begin slowly releasing this unutilized space. If the user logs off, closes Outlook or starts using the PC again, compaction simply stops. But not with PSTCompactor.

PSTCompactor forces the recovery of this unutilized space and compresses attachments at the server when you want, across the network. No client side software, no exchange server changes and no requirement for the system to be idle.

Removing Unwanted Content

PSTCompactor can remove deleted content and, with PSTCompactor Enterprise, enforce your companies email policies to eliminate messages, attachments, etc that do not align with corporate policy.

You can expect to recover around 38% of the space consumed by your companies PST files on the product's first run - right out of the box. Once configured with your Email Policies, the Enterprise edition can substantially increase this figure even further!

The results are clear:

  • Reduced backup times
  • Smaller PST files leading to increased Outlook performance & stability
  • Control of acceptable content (Enterprise edition only)
  • Satisfy corporate email policy implementation
  • Delay or eliminate the need for hardware upgrades
  • Totally automateable
  • Identify problems before they become operational issues such as PST's approaching the 2gb limitation (prior to Office 2003). After reaching 2gb, the PST file becomes permanently inaccessible !

What about the alternatives to using PSTCompactor ?

Why not just upgrade disks on the server?
Upgrading server capacity is a short term fix, not a solution a solution to the problem of exponential email growth.

Not only do disk upgrades represent a lower ROI than PSTCompactor, they do not address the root of the problem. Without management by a tool like PSTCompactor the space consumed by email will continue to grow, requiring further upgrades in the future. PSTCompactor pays for itself when you consider its ability to recover wasted space time and time again.

Even excluding hardware, the initial cost of buying PSTCompactor is often dwarfed by the costs of labor, downtime, migration problems and other risks associated disk upgrades - especially in medium to large enterprises. Don't kid yourself, how much did your last upgrade really cost?

Also, consider the ever growing cost and time of data backups.

Why not manually compact my PST file?
Outlooks PST file compaction alone will never come close to the amount of space PSTCompactor can recover with attachment compression enabled.

PSTCompactor compresses attachments (zips) so they physically consume less space, freeing up additional space inside your PST files. No version of Outlook offers this capability.

Try it for yourself - PSTCompactor recovers more space than Outlook hands down - expect to see at least 20% difference!