Data Storage

[Expiry]

Can any of you share any good practise tips for data storage?

I'm trying to the problem of running out of space on the server, but i'm constantly bombarded with "I can't delete that, I need it". So, any tips you have for keeping file size to a minimum would be appreciated.

 

[Jon von der Heyden]

I used to keep data storage costs down by running a process to keep storage as low as possible. I used a FSO script to list all files in a directory, along with certain attributes such as last accessed, last modified, size etc. Then, as a matter or process, any files not accessed with 6 months were compressed and the original files deleted. Files not accessed within 1 year and >1MB were reviewed and if not needed any more then deleted. Course many had to remain because they may have been tax documents, patents or something important. But most often it's just some random junk analysis file that's waaaaaaay out of date.

So what you need is an Access database, ideally on the safe file server, the FSO script to loop the directory and get file details (plenty about on the web or have a go at it yourself), and a spare computer (because it might take ages to run).

I used a vbs file for the FSO BTW, rather than use Excel.

 

[Domski]

People are lazy and generally can't be bothered to do their own housekeeping. I find publishing a list of files/folders that haven't been touched for a while and giving people a month to tell me they need to keep the stuff in it followed by mass deletion is the best policy.

Dom

 

[Expiry]

I've tried both of those ideas and they've had a degree of success.

I work in Finance and so there are lots of files that need to be kept for regulatory purposes. It would be great to know if there were a few tricks, other than compressing, to ensure the size of these files was kept to a minimum.

 

[arkusM]

I've tried both of those ideas and they've had a degree of success.

I work in Finance and so there are lots of files that need to be kept for regulatory purposes. It would be great to know if there were a few tricks, other than compressing, to ensure the size of these files was kept to a minimum.

Convert all the excel workbooks to CSV's... LOL and print everything else as PDF's.

Though last time I dealt with an audit and didn't have the original spreadsheet, well it sucked.

Storage is cheap, but organization is painful. I have a friend that ran a department to organize files. I think this is a microcosom of life so, much, data, even lots of information.

Good luck.

 

[Jon von der Heyden]

I've tried both of those ideas and they've had a degree of success.

I work in Finance and so there are lots of files that need to be kept for regulatory purposes. It would be great to know if there were a few tricks, other than compressing, to ensure the size of these files was kept to a minimum.

Move to SharePoint Collaboration and use document libraries? Depending on the configuration SP document libraries have a fantastic way of managing document versions whereby only the changes are stored in the version history, rather than the entire file.

Ok so that's a big expense but it's an idea.

Another thing I have done before is reallocate the storage costs to the different groups within my division. Thus with each department (cost centre) having a budget and incentive schemes closely linked to budget vs actual, some people start taking housekeeping a lot more seriously!

 

[SydneyGeek]

Take old / unused stuff offline? Using something like Jon's approach, identify non-current files and write them to another drive or burn a DVD.
External HD would be my preference; faster, and less likely to corrupt over time. Keep the HD in a safe place so you can recover data if audited.
Come to think of it, you could just push all your data to an external HD and delete when you don't need from the server. Put a password on the HD to get around access issues; some will encrypt the data for you too.

Once you start using the new Office formats compression won't help much because they are already zip files.

Denis