FM 8 Database Filesize Issues

[Cassetti]

Hey everyone, got a bit of a quandary in our database that i can't quite solve. We are running some legacy databases from the days of FMP7, upgraded to FMP 8 (clients and servers).

We have around 5 database files all linked together and related to each other for the various departments of our company. Its a rather small database, only about 15 people using it.

All of our database files are roughly 100 to 200 megabytes in size, Minus one database. Funny thing is it is not the most complex and largest database that we have in terms of records/relationships/fields/tables, etc.

However it is growing quite large: 1.8 gigabytes currently!!

Previously we encountered this problem in the database, and traced it back to a container field used to store PDF files of quotes. We removed that and the problem went away.

I have already done this with the database file - I am linking to the PDF files instead of containing them in the database. I also have turned off indexing on many fields used for one table that had 32,000 records.

None of this has affected the size of the file!

How can i shrink the size of the database? It is getting to be a big stress for me in the event our server crashes (hasn't recently) we could be down for over an hour while the thing re-checks all the database files!

Thanks in advance!

[mr_vodka]

After you convert the stored container fields into referenced container fields, try saving a copy as compact.

[Cassetti]

Question - Since I'm not the admin when it comes to the FMP server.

If we save a copy and compact it,

Will that break all relationships with the other database files that we use? Every database file has numerous relationships to tables on other files, and scripts set to go to related records on other layouts

not to mention that we also have a slew of calculated fields in other records that check related fields in the affected database.

[mr_vodka]

No.

[Cassetti]

Really, so I won't have to do 10 or 20 hours of work to fix the relationships?!

Thanks

Edited January 30, 2009 by Guest

[mr_vodka]

When you go under file and 'Save a Copy As', a dialog will pop up with the file name +Copy as well as the option to choose Copy of current, Clone or Compacted. Choose Compacted. Your original will still be the same but your new copy should be smaller.