Need recommendation - how to move/store 1.3GB of old email

Hello,

Thanks for looking in. I'm trying to help a buddy of mine on saving his old email. He is a researcher and has managed to collect 1.3GB of email/attachments/etc in his email foldes on his home machine. This is very critical stuff and represents a couple thousand hours of academic correspondence, etc. I mentioned to him that he really needed to backup this stuff and store a copy of it offsite. He agreed but we were unclear on how to best go about doing this.

My buddy is using Netscape Communicator to send and receive email. I've drilled down to his profiles and he has 5 of them. I know at least some of these are old email accounts that he has rolled over. The largest of these is 1.3GB, but in the mail properties it list (only?) 2 folders and 125 files. I though there would be more.

So my question really is - what is the best way to get a copy of these files off his hardrive and onto CD. He has a CD burner and is running XP. I thought of just copying his profile (at least the mail portion of it) but I "think" I would have to break up the files given the size limitations of a single CD. Is there a better way to do this?

I'm hoping to do this the easy way - if there is one,

Thanks,
Ken

 

First thing I would do is compact his folders. Open up messenger and go to file -- Compress folders.

Then close out his folders.

Next, try using winrar to compress the folder with. It can really pack down a file more than winzip does.

http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm

 

Thanks for the reply.

I have not been home to try the compression you recommended. Two questions:

1 - How do I actually move/export the mail from Comminicator to another file or CD?

2 - If the compression doesn't get the data down below that which will fit on a CD, how do I break upthe file so I can get it on multiple CDs?

Thanks again,
Ken

 

Which brings up a interesting consideration. Backup is an important. Following conventional approaches is certainly an option. Given the size, the importance, need to access, organize, and search... you may want to consider archiving into a database. This provides many useful features. Once in place, finding and organizing information from the database onto CD's (sized to subject) for offsite backup needs is one of many features. The day to day advantages of having this dynamic information searchable, sortable and accessable adds value to intellectual property. Found this inexpensive database that supports email archiving. I'm sure many suggestions will follow.

 

I would backup his whole profile (minus the cache).

Winrar (I am using the latest beta) has the ability when creating the archive to split the file up into pieces the right size to place on cd's. In fact, it even has two options depending on whether you have 650mb discs or 700 mb discs.

The options is located right in the main add dialogue.

All you would need to do is right click on the folder that you want to compress and then choose Add to Archive. Then choose the Split to volume option.

You can under the file tab tell it to save absolute paths. For this archive, I think that would be best.

I think winzip may have this ability also, but I don't use it anymore.

 

Thanks guys - I will try the winrar backup and also look into a program that manages his backup on a regular basis.

Ken