Maintenance Plans Backup Task Does Not Delete Old bak files

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Maintenance Plans Backup Task Does Not Delete Old bak files

dbaforever

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August 23, 2007 at 11:28 am

#180477

hi experts,
I built a db maint plan to backup all my user databases, specifying to 'Delete backup sets if older than 4 days'
It runs beautifully, backing up each db - but it has NEVER deleted any of the old .bak files. I have to remember to clean those up manually so the drive will not fill up.
Event log, SS logs do not indicate any problems with permissions or any other problem.
I'm using 2005 with SP2 applied.
Have you had this problem?
Thanks! John

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Aaron Ingold SSCrazy Eights Points: 9070 More actions · Answer 1

I touched on this problem briefly in an article way back when:

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/aingold/workingaround2005maintenanceplans.asp

Shameless plug aside, I would actually recommend you open up the plan and add a Maintenance Cleanup Task and specify to clean up backup files older than your threshold. You have to do it manually, the wizard won't do it.

dbaforever Hall of Fame Points: 3740 More actions · Answer 2

Thank you, Arnold. I will check out your article.

Actuall, I did just that - added a Cleanup task to purge the old files. Shouldn't be necessary though because the backup task offers that option ... which obviously doesn't work reliably.

Thanks. John

Brandon Nelson SSC Veteran Points: 223 More actions · Answer 3

John,

I had problems when the Windows Admin changed the normal system backup time to around the same time as SQL. Then the Windows backup application had a lock on the old backup files and they could not be deleted. Once the Windows backup time was changed back it all worked nicely.

Regards,

Brandon

barry555 SSC Eights! Points: 944 More actions · Answer 4

Hi Aaron,

I checked out your article and noted that someone from the SQL Server team said this would be fixed in SP1. We're now on SP2! Have they said when they will fix this?

Regards,

Barry