Removing old Records from Table.

[EduardoYus]

Greetings,

I do not have any (or much) SQL experience, if I'm on the wrong forum, please point me in the right direction.

We have a SQL Calendar/Appointment application that was custom built for us 3 years ago, the table where the appointments are kept has continued to grow.

I would like to delete any appointments older than 1 year from it hoping that will speed things up. It is accessed from a WEB interface.

Is there a simple way to do this ?

Many Thanks.

 

[Jamfool]

well basic syntax would be


delete from table_name where date_column < '2005-08-08 00:00:00.000'

be sure to take a backup, before you run the query. if you need further help with the exact syntax of the query thenplease give your table structure.

 

[mutley1]

I'd check the amount / size of records before deleting them all in 1 hit. There's a potential to fill the log file if there's loads of them. I had a developer do a delete statement for 1 years worth of data on a live system (don't know how he had access!!) and it tried to delete 3 million rows and crashed the server. It may be worth looking into starting at the oldest and doing a month at a time, but without knowing the dataset it's difficult to offer precise advice.

Rgds,

M.

 

[EduardoYus]

Thanks, I'll try that and let you know how it goes.