Remove Files Older Than...

Question

Remove Files Older Than...

Matthew Pride Hawkins

SSC Rookie

Points: 28
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May 30, 2007 at 11:52 am

#173828

IN the BOL, the following is listed:
Remove files older than
Delete database backups that are older than the specified period automatically. It is recommended that you maintain a history of database backups in the event that the database must be restored to a point in time earlier than the last performed backup. Retain as many backups as disk space allows and as far in the past from which you may need to restore, depending on business practices.
But for a couple of our database servers, this doesn't happen or more to the point the maintenance plan does not remove/delete the backups older than 3 days (that is what set it to)...This happens on SQL Server 7.0 & 2000...any thoughts???

Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

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Lynn Pettis SSC Guru Points: 442467 More actions · Answer 1

Had this problem with maintenance plans at my previous employer. We had to delete and recreate the maintenance plans to get it to work properly. If we had to make any changes, we got to the point we simply deleted the old plan and would create it again from scratch making the approriate changes we wanted to implement in the new plan.

Sorry I couldn't be more helpful, but maybe someone else has a better answer.

Rudyx - the Doctor SSC-Forever Points: 43695 More actions · Answer 2

I just want to confirm Lynn's post. This has been an extremely sporadic issue in SQL 2000. The only solution was to drop and recreate the maintenance plan.

RegardsRudy KomacsarSenior Database Administrator"Ave Caesar! - Morituri te salutamus."

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 736455 More actions · Answer 3

Third confirmation here. Whack the plan and re-set it up. I'd also check the logs for the plan and see if anything else is amiss.

Shawn McGehee Ten Centuries Points: 1239 More actions · Answer 4

One more confirmation. Drop the plan and recreate it. It sucks, but it works

Matthew Pride Hawkins SSC Rookie Points: 28 More actions · Answer 5

OK thanks guys! We are doing that now. I just wanted to through that question out there to see if someone else knew of something else we could try or do...but yes, we recreate the plan every few weeks and as long as we do that it works out fine but leave it for more than 3 weeks and you get database backups stacking up....Thanks again!

SQLBill SSC Guru Points: 51440 More actions · Answer 6

And in 2005 there was/is an issue with SP2. If you have your expire set for DAYS, you need to recreate it after applying SP2 (I'm not sure they fixed with the SP2 update - SP2a).

-SQLBill