How much disk space do you have for SIMS.net?

[indiegirl]

We have 116gb, of which currently 114.8gb is full 8O

I got in this morning to a flood of phonecalls from people complaining that they couldn't log in - had a look at the server, 12mb free on the disk. No wonder they couldn't log in.

Problem is, I can't find anything else to remove to create space - Capita were their usual helpful selves, suggesting that I tidy the backups up but "we can't suggest anything else that you can remove". Everything on the disk is SIMS related.

The Capita guy mentioned something to me about using the February disk to re-create the setups folder, but I haven't got a clue if we've even received the February disk (it's probably in a big pile of envelopes on the NM's desk if we have). It'd only free up 200mb anyway.

Anyone else had such problems in the past?

[metalmonkey]

Have to say, thats seems far too much.

Our Sims folder is in total, 4.7gb

Most of the space is the backups, and I only keep 2 months of backups

Do you have many photos of students?

[GrumbleDook]

Part of the problem is if you are using the server as a Document Server and people are storing *lots* of the letters that they send out to parents.

One option is to search for any document with .doc, or .xls and see what is older than 12 months ... if it resembles a letter home or a student data file (a report that has been produced, eg set lists) then copy to another drive and zip up.

Alternatively set up another installation of the SIMS.net client and make it a document server. Capita doe have some destructions ... somewhere ... on doing this.

The other thing to check is in your STAR and LEA folders for old transfer files that have already been imported ... or old exams file ... get these archived out the way too.

[Snuffkins]

Well we only have a 60 gig partition on the sims server and about 17 gig is used. How big is your sims database? To be honest 50% of that is our backup directory(just in case it is capita after all).

I take it you don't have quite so much in the sql backup area as we do, lol. Otherwise it might be worth getting rid of them. And as for the setups folder if that shouldn't be much over a gig.

Do you actually get CD's still, they stopped issueing CD's to us as soon as they started using Solus.

[webman]

Download a free utility called Space Monger - it will show you visually the folder/file size distribution on a selected disk. May take a while to run through 114GB of data but it will help you pin-point any large files.

[indiegirl]

The guy I spoke to seemed to assume we'd had the "february disk"! I thought that it was all done via Solus as well...

Just found the culprit - in the following folder:

Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL$SIMS\Data

I have a SIMS.ldf file which is 110gb 8O

[pete]

I'm using 21.9GB of 53GB on my SIMS data partition. That includes ~10 yrs worth of cruft transferred from previous server and at least 3 upgrade backups - not sure how you'd have used 110GB.

Have you got a lot of add-ons bolted into sims?
What's taking up all the space? Docserver, sims directory or backups?
Has anything decided to spew data where it shouldn't?

If you've a lot of backups on there, keep the most recent, burn the ones you need for testing / outside auditing purposes (yes, you will be asked for these occasionally) onto DVD and bin the rest.
[edit - beaten to the punchline]

[Snuffkins]

So it was your back-ups/ Doesn't that mean the guy from Captia was right? *Cringes at the thought* lol.

[indiegirl]

Not really, removing the backups (there were only 6 in there anyway) apart from the last one gained me 1gb of space.

This sims.ldf file has been written to today and is clearly in use daily.. I looked at it the other week wondering why it was so large.

That MSSQL$SIMS folder - is that the backup one then?

(apologies, I've never been allowed to 'touch' SIMS before, and it's only in the NM's absence that I'm in at the deep end)

[NetworkGeezer]

We have 116gb, of which currently 114.8gb is full 8O
I got in this morning to a flood of phonecalls from people complaining that they couldn't log in - had a look at the server, 12mb free on the disk. No wonder they couldn't log in.

116GB! Does that sound about right? If so then I suspect a backup operaton might of gone wrong leaving you with one or more huge .bak files in your SQL Server Backup files. Normally System Manager creates zip files at the end of the SQL backup.

Althoug you can't logon touse system manager what you could do is go into the backup folder and replace as many redundat .bak and .zip files with zero 0kb files of the same name. That way SysMan won't throw a wobly if you need to tidy backups at a later stage.

The Capita guy mentioned something to me about using the February disk to re-create the setups folder, but I haven't got a clue if we've even received the February disk (it's probably in a big pile of envelopes on the NM's desk if we have). It'd only free up 200mb anyway.
Anyone else had such problems in the past?

It doesn't matter quite so much about the CD if you have backed up S:\SIMS\Setups as part of your normal tape backup then you can repopulate at later stage though any clients won't be able to upgrade until you do.

I assume you are running SIMS.net in read/write mode. If so then another area to look at is any student photos stored in the old dBase Star folder. This might take up a lot of space if you have been using SIMS for many years.

[NetworkGeezer]

We have 116gb, of which currently 114.8gb is full 8O
I got in this morning to a flood of phonecalls from people complaining that they couldn't log in - had a look at the server, 12mb free on the disk. No wonder they couldn't log in.

116GB! Does that sound about right? If so then I suspect a backup operaton might of gone wrong leaving you with one or more huge .bak files in your SQL Server Backup files. Normally System Manager creates zip files at the end of the SQL backup.

Althoug you can't logon touse system manager what you could do is go into the backup folder and replace as many redundat .bak and .zip files with zero 0kb files of the same name. That way SysMan won't throw a wobly if you need to tidy backups at a later stage.

The Capita guy mentioned something to me about using the February disk to re-create the setups folder, but I haven't got a clue if we've even received the February disk (it's probably in a big pile of envelopes on the NM's desk if we have). It'd only free up 200mb anyway.
Anyone else had such problems in the past?

It doesn't matter quite so much about the CD if you have backed up S:\SIMS\Setups as part of your normal tape backup then you can repopulate at later stage though any clients won't be able to upgrade until you do.

I assume you are running SIMS.net in read/write mode. If so then another area to look at is any student photos stored in the old dBase Star folder. This might take up a lot of space if you have been using SIMS for many years.

[Snuffkins]

No sorry misread your post . Although the backup are stored in a sub folder of that folder. How on earth did the NM let the .ldf get that big? How big is the .mdf? What have you done to reduce the size?

[indiegirl]

the mdf is 812mb, bit different to the 110gb ldf!

I haven't got a clue how to reduce the size of the ldf.

I suspect it's got this big because the NM doesn't understand SIMS. Neither of us have been on any courses, etc.. and you only have to ask SYSMAN_MK as to how the current NM struggled when he took over in the school (SYSMAN_MK used to be the NM here until a couple of years ago).

We were running CSE stuff until the summer, and I wasn't involved in the transfer of SIMS onto the new SQL server they put in in May last year (I arrived here in July) - I suspect that stuff was just copied over in the vain hope it'd work.

[steve]

dbattach.exe /user:"username" /password:"password" /backup /SERVER:"YOURSIMSSERVER" /DATABASE:"sims" /AUTO

That will reduce the size of the ldf (username and password of a sysman)

But you will need space for a backup - about 300Mb

[Snuffkins]

Can you run the sql backup for sims. I'm sure that'll reduce the size! Although it is early in the morning for me so i'm probably wrong again.

This is the .bat file i use


ECHO OFF

CLS
ECHO SMIS SQL BACKUP
ECHO PLEASE WAIT .....

DBATTACH /DATABASE="DATABASENAME" /BACKUP /AUTO /USER="USERNAME" /PASSWORD="PASSWORD" /SERVER="SERVERNAME\DATABASENAME"

IF ERRORLEVEL 1 GOTO :ERROR

GOTO :END

:ERROR
ECHO SQL DATABASE NOT BACKED UP
GOTO :FINAL

:END
ECHO SQL BACKUP SUCESSFULL

:FINAL
PAUSE
ECHO PRESS ANY KEY...
EXIT