Great for user mailbox archive backups and downloads. No additional price, unless you want great value-added features like Litigation Hold.
Updated April 25, 2022
Great for user mailbox archive backups and downloads. No additional price, unless you want great value-added features like Litigation Hold.

Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft Exchange Online Archiving
We are an IT consulting firm. Some of our clients in Hong Kong, in the legal, auditing, or financial industry, need to keep all email data (regardless of deleted or undeleted) for at least 7 years. Since we host all our clients' email services under Microsoft 365's Exchange services, this native solution does the job and closes the loop for us.
Pros
- Great granular-level management and backup of all Microsoft 365 mailboxes
- Content search and investigation of mailboxes without modifying a user's password (without the user knowing)
Cons
- Setting the role to use e-Discovery is frustrating. Although you're the global admin, you must assign yourself the role of e-Discovery manager in order to use it. Not even e-Discovery admin.
- Assigning yourself the role of e-Discovery manager successfully, but does not reflect immediately. So you still get permission issues when doing a content search. You have to wait until the permissions propagate before you can access content search. No warnings whatsoever from Microsoft's success message. I was scratching my head off.
- e-Discovery downloads must use Edge or Internet Explorer. Chrome, Firefox, and other browsers won't work.
- In-Place Hold or Litigation Hold requires Exchange Plan 2, which doubles the price of Exchange Plan 1. Exchange Plan 1 does not come with this function.
- e-Discovery
- Content search
- Download the user mailbox archives as a PST file before deleting a user
- Litigation Hold
- Great investment. Basically the Microsoft Exchange Plan license (or equivalent) does all I need. It's only the configuration I have to perform.
It's a native solution, robust, and does my job well. Why do I need a paid third party product?
Do you think Microsoft Exchange Online Archiving delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Microsoft Exchange Online Archiving's feature set?
Yes
Did Microsoft Exchange Online Archiving live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of Microsoft Exchange Online Archiving go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy Microsoft Exchange Online Archiving again?
Yes
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