Cleanup of hosted databases, new backups

[naio]

It's time to clean the server space, I need to move some databases and design a new backup. I have some doubts:

• Is it safe to reorganize the Databases folder IF I stop the database server before doing so? is this safe enough?
• Should I clean all the backups in FMS Backups folder and start from anew? given that backups include hard links couldn't this render new backups unusable?
• Is it correct to replace databases with its FMP compacted copies? is it a good way to regain storage space?

Thanks,

[Wim Decorte]

9 hours ago, naio said:

couldn't this render new backups unusable?

 

That all depends on the reorganization you have in mind.  But in general, hard-linking is an OS feature and if you just move files to a different folder, that doesn't signal to the OS that it needs to occupy new disk real-estate.  If you move things to a different folder then obviously it will occupy new disk space there but as long as you move backups from the same schedule en-masse it should preserve the hard-linking.  Worst case it won't and will take disk space for each full backup set.

But it will not render backups unusable.

9 hours ago, naio said:

Is it correct to replace databases with its FMP compacted copies? is it a good way to regain storage space?

It's not a bad thing to do, it can make your solutions faster and it plus its backups will take less disk space.  How long that will last depends on the nature of the solution and how much data gets added and deleted.