January 31, 2006 at 9:56 am
I am looking for the setting that allows you to keep only so many days of backup. Please note that I am NOT talking about the log history but the actual backup files themselves. In 2000 the wizard had two different settings for this. I cannot find the setting for the number of days to keep the backup. Anyone?
Peter Cwik
January 31, 2006 at 11:04 am
Hello Peter,
It seems there is no way in deleting the backup files as existed in SQL 2000.
Please go through this blog thread
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=213255&SiteId=1
Thanks and have a nice day!!!
Lucky
February 1, 2006 at 7:37 am
On the off chance that all you want to know is where to find the number of days to keep before the plan will delete the backup files, it's in the Maintenance Cleanup Task in the toolbox. Looks very similar to the interface in SQL 2000 but for some reason doesn't have all the functionality.
Hope that helps.
MG
"There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies."
Tony Hoare
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair.
February 1, 2006 at 10:48 am
I found it a couple of days ago myself and did some experimenting yesterday. This thing, Maintenance Cleanup Task has checkboxes for the directory name and file extension. I was afraid it will delete everything if I don't specify extensions or a folder. For once, you can not save it if you don't specify things, this is good. The second thing I found experimenting with the log and backup files it actually deletes only maintenance log and backup files, not other files with the same extension.
For example, if you have a maintenance task log which is a text file with extension txt it has a first line in the file
Microsoft(R) Server Maintenance Utility (Unicode) Version 9.0.1399
If this line is present, then this file will be deleted according to cleanup task specifications. If I remove this line from the file, the log file will not be deleted. If I put this line into some other txt file, it will be deleted too. The same file in the subfolder of the specified folder will not be deleted.
It is probably similar thing with the database backups that have identifiers that this is a backup file. Any other file with extension BAK was not deleted.
NOTE: I tested in the TEMP directory, do not test in your production directory.
Regards,Yelena Varsha
February 1, 2006 at 10:56 am
"It is probably similar thing with the database backups that have identifiers that this is a backup file. Any other file with extension BAK was not deleted."
I'm fairly certain the agent pulls the file name from MSDB and compares them. I haven't tested this though, but I base it on the fact that if I copy a backup file from another server to a folder in the maintenance plan, that file won't be deleted even if it is much older than the retention period specified in the plan.
MG
"There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies."
Tony Hoare
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair.
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