Standard Archive Store

Available immediately after setup is complete, this storage type is suitable for most environments and requirements. Standard archive stores are created by MailStore Server in the file system and do not require an external database management system or special configuration steps. In practice, this allows for MailStore Server installations that support more than a thousand archived mailboxes and the users who access them. A standard archive store consists of the following components:

• Embedded database – Stores email metadata
• Container files - In these encrypted files with a “manageable” size of about 8 MB, the actual email headers, content and attachments are stored
• Full-text indexes - These are created for each user and allow email and attachment searches to be completed very quickly

Advanced Archive Store

Advanced archive stores allow the use of external database management systems (Microsoft SQL Server and PostgreSQL) for data storage. This storage type is suitable for businesses with an existing IT infrastructure containing these types of systems that they would like to use for email archiving. Please note that the use of external DBMS is only an option, not a requirement. From a performance and scalability aspect, standard archive stores as described above work perfectly fine even for companies with thousands of users.

Scalability

A MailStore email archive can be created from any number of standard or advanced archive stores. You can, for example, create one archive store per quarter or year, or automatically create a new store if the current one has reached a pre-set threshold. For the end user, the archive store concept is completely transparent. The user works with one combined view on the entire archive.

The distribution of the main archive into any number of independent archive stores allows for flexible and, if necessary, hierarchical storage management.

Archive Backup

Backups can be made using an integrated backup feature or third-party backup software. MailStore Server optimizes data storage for incremental backups and supports Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS). Please refer to MailStore Help for details on VSS support.

Restoring Archives

In the event of damage or loss, an existing backup can be restored to a new MailStore Server installation within minutes when standard archive stores are used. Since the backup includes not only all archived emails but also all settings (such as users and permissions), there will be minimal downtime; recovery is simply a matter of copying directories back in the file system.

General Features

• Suitable for any volume of data and any number of users
• Lower storage requirements by using single instance archiving (duplicate content is only archived once) and compression of file attachments.
• Tamper-proof through use of SHA1 hashes
• Internal AES256 encryption of email bodies and attachments
• Supports iSCSI, Fibre Channel, NAS, and SAN