Database inexplicably gaining size

[mpl]

Hi guys, I am trying to work out an issue I am having at my work with our FileMaker database. Please bear with me as I am not a FileMaker developer and that is the first time I have worked in a business with a FileMaker solution.

Basically we have a custom developed FileMaker solution on a Windows 2003 Server running FileMaker Server 9. We have approximately 14 client machines running Windows XP and FileMaker Pro 9. The database it set to back up every night from within the FileMaker server admin interface.

My problem is that the database file keeps getting larger, it has been doing this for a few months now (since we moved from 8.5 to 9 I think). The database file should be between 100MB to 200MB based on the amount of data in it but right now it has just hit 1.8GB.

We can export the data and import it into a blank copy of the database and the size drops down to where it should be.

The thing is I can not for the life of me work out why the database would be constantly gaining size at such a rate, the only thing I can think of is that there is something wrong with the database and that maybe FileMaker dumps error data back into the file (no idea if this is a feasible explanation, as I said I am not a developer).

The guy who developed our solution has not been much help and he says he cannot find any reason why this would be happening. The only thing he can do is keep exporting the data back into a blank copy of the database.

Before we upgraded to FileMaker 9 we did have some problems with stability and the database kept crashing and having to be recovered. Since we upgraded to 9 and moved the data into a new upgraded copy of the database this has not been happening, but that is where I got the idea of error data from.

Anyway, just hoping some clever individual might have seen something similar before and can make some suggestions as to why this might be happening.

Cheers.

[Lee Smith]

This sounds like the file is growing do to Indexing.

Lee

[Vaughan]

Instead of importing into a bank copy, get one of the bloated files and save a compressed copy using FMP locally (on a backup of course).

As a comparison, what are the sizes of backups made with FMS?