Question

Archiving of old data in a table?

Asked by: JimR123b

We have a table with over 20 million rows in it, with each row having a datetime field (let's call it "TimeStamp"), containing the date and time when the row was created.

As the table is quite large, it makes doing queries on it very slow.

We would like to implement a system that archives off old data (e.g. where the row's timestamp is older than 3 months) to another identically structured table. We would also like to delete data from the archive table for over a certain age (e.g. delete rows that are more than 2 years old).

Considering that the table has many rows, what's the most efficient way of implementing this?

Is there a way of "moving" data from one table to another? i.e. Performing the archiving process in one step (a "move"), rather than two steps ("insert into archive table from select", then "delete" from original table).

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Asked On
2009-09-30 at 02:07:28ID24772849
Tags

SQL

Topics

MS SQL Server

,

SQL Query Syntax

Participating Experts
3
Points
250
Comments
6

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Answers

 

by: dosukaPosted on 2009-09-30 at 02:31:41ID: 25456834

If you use MS SQL Server 2005, you may consider index and table partitioning to improve the query performance.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345146(SQL.90).aspx#sql2k5parti_topic6

 

by: JimR123bPosted on 2009-09-30 at 02:39:31ID: 25456864

Unfortunately, we're using SQL Server 2000...

 

by: MuhammadKashifPosted on 2009-09-30 at 02:42:28ID: 25456876

 

by: MikeToolePosted on 2009-09-30 at 02:45:08ID: 25456884

It would make sense if you first delete the data older than two years from your current table - you don't want to archive it and then delete it!
Make sure that there's an Index on the TimeStamp column.
There's no way that I'm aware of to 'Move' data. It has to be a two stage Insert then Delete.

declare @ArchiveDate date
select  @ArchiveDate = dateadd(M,-3,getdate())
Insert Into ArchiveTable Select * from TheTable where Timestamp < @ArchiveDate
Delete from TheTable where Timestamp < @ArchiveDate

 

by: JimR123bPosted on 2009-09-30 at 05:14:37ID: 25457786

Am also trying to reduce the size of the database, as the one table alone is nearly 8gb, so removing data is just as important as increasing performance.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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