>My motivation was to keep the backup database size small. > >We have to archive about 5,000,000 small files off our NT servers every month. >I found that our database size was growing by about 5GB per month as a result. >At that rate I would have had a database that was about 100GB in a year. ...
That is always a vexing situation; but rather than thinking only of server-side means of addressing it, consider also client-side methods. The oft-cited best method is for the client to combine large groups of files into one, as via the Unix 'tar' command or various personal computer bundling packages. At the same time as making server storage less insane, it allows the client to reduce an unwieldy number of individual files into smaller, manageable groups. In that most Archive files are seldom retrieved, bundling makes a lot of sense. If there is resistance from the client, bring the issue to the attention of your company management, regarding what it is costing in terms of database management, additional disk space (incl. mirroring), prolonged db backups, increased TSM recovery time, etc. Richard Sims, BU
