> save as a compressed clone file (takes a while
Should have been "save as a compressed COPY", as a clone contain no data.
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Backup and/or Compress a Filemaker Pro File
We are running Filemaker Pro v6. One of our files is very large (almost 2GB). We are trying to backup this file over the internet. Is there a way to do an incremental backup every day or some way to compress the file automatically so the size is reduced?
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Answers
In English FileMaker, Clone creates a file with all the metadata and structure, but no actual records. Compressed Copy is what you want.
I'd also point out that as your file is approaching the 2gig limit, you really need to consider doing something to mitigate that. The simplest option would be to upgrade to a newer FileMaker version, which supports much larger file sizes, but if that's not an option, you could always split the big table into two, or perhaps consider an archiving option, where records older than a certain date are offloaded into a backup file and removed from the live file.
One thing you don't want to have happen is have a file crash because it's at the maximum file size. That can lead to serious corruption.
The 2 gig limit is only a problem if you intend to continue to add more records to your database without purging any older data. That depends on what kind of project it is, of course. Many business databases only need to retain data for a certain number of years.
An incremental backup is not really an option with a FileMaker database. The entire file will be changed whenever there's even a minor change to the interface or contents, so an incremental backup would really just back up the whole thing anyway.
You didn't mention if you're using FileMaker Server. If so, then it's pretty easy to create a batch file that will automatically shut down the database, make a backup copy, then restart it. If you're not using FM server, you can use any standard backup procedure to make a backup of your FileMaker database, but it's very important that the files not be in use at the time. The backup must happen only when the database is completely closed.
The compression process mentioned previously will pack the data, eliminating wasted space from records that have been deleted, but it will only reduce file size if there's unused space to reclaim, otherwise you won't see much improvement.
NEVER make a backup copy of a FileMaker file while it's in use. Even if you have backup software that says it can backup files in use, don't try it. Always shut down your FM application or server before backing up or copying the files.
If your goal is to shrink the size of your data file for faster uploading, simply compressing the file into a zip archive may save some space, depending on the kind of data you're storing. That can be automated with a batch script as well.
with fm server, the file can be backed up on the fly if you "pause" the server: this is available using the command line mode of fm server from fm server v3 to v10. zipping will shrink it a lot from my experience, but anyway, this does not fix your primary problem which is the 2GB limit of fm server 5 /fm pro 6. Making a compressed copy will probably reduce its size by 20% if it is the first time you do it, but you'll be back to 2GB in 3 weeks for sure, so it will only give you time to find a solution, either breaking the db in 2 files or migrate to fm7+
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by: lesouefPosted on 2009-10-06 at 22:55:40ID: 25512504
incremental: no
compress: stop server, open it with fm pro (on another machine if no fm pro on your server), save as a compressed clone file (takes a while) and place it back on server. if the size reduction is not enough, time to think of fm10...