<p>In past versions of Microsoft Outlook, administrators often had to make certain compromiseswhen it came to managing OST file bloat. In Outlook 2013, Microsoft has introduced two newmechanisms that help balance these files dynamically and intelligently.</p><p>As the workforce has grown increasingly mobile, Outlook Cached mode has proved its worth. Roadwarriors can enjoy the full contents of their mailboxes even over high-latency links, knowing thatOutlook is synchronizing outbound messages and incoming updates in the background as networkconditions allow, permitting content lookups and searches from a local OST file.</p><p>The mobility trend, however, has run squarely into opposition with another trend: large mailboxsizes. At some point, the amount of data in a mailbox creates an OST file that is unwieldy for oneof these reasons:The file is too large to fit into the limited storage on mobile devices.The file is too large for slow mobile disks to search effectively.The sync rate from the large mailbox is too much for network conditions.</p><p>In previous versions of Outlook,administrators would do things like add expensive, large solid-state drives tomobile devices, or keep user mailboxes small in order to combat these problems. In Outlook2013, admins now have two new tools at their disposal: Sync Slider and Exchange FastAccess.The Outlook 2013 Sync Slider</p><p><a href="http://searchexchange.techtarget.com/tip/New-Outlook-2013-features-help-manage-OST-files">Keep reading...</a></p>