Hi Barry,

> But I will still need to clean up the 17 million deleted records.

Not if you restore the database afterwards, right?

Or, try a " select count(*) from table_where_you_delete_the_rows "
That might clean the garbage as well.

With regards,

Martijn Tonies
Database Workbench - developer tool for InterBase, Firebird, MySQL & MS SQL
Server.
Upscene Productions
http://www.upscene.com

> Barry
>
> --- In firebird-support@yahoogroups.com, "Martijn Tonies"
> <m.tonies@u...> wrote:
> > Hi Barry,
> >
> > > I have inherited a database that was not maintained for some time.
> > > Unfortunately the designer also designed it to create a huge
> amount
> > > of uneeded audit records (18 million records). The single file
> DB is
> > > approching 3.7gig and is about to run out of room.
> > >
> > > 3 weeks ago I was able to backup the entire DB.
> > >
> > > I then deleted the offending 18M rows
> > >
> > > I then tried to do a backup and the process ran for nearly 48
> hours
> > > before I had to kill it. The CPU usage goes straight to 100% and
> > > stays there. I finaly had to kill it because the customer needed
> to
> > > print from this machine (another great idea by someone to put the
> > > print que's for the site on this machine).
> >
> > If you want to create a backup "just" for a restore, turn OFF
> > "garbage collection" when doing the backup.