[p4] Reducing the size of Perforce data.

[Robert Cowham]

Raghu

How long will it take you to restore from tape if something goes wrong?

Given how cheap disk space is I would always say backup to disk somewhere
else as well as tape, so that if anything goes wrong you have a much faster
recovery time.

One company I know had a failure and hadn't realised that they would lose 8
hours the following day restoring from tape! (This of course depends on the
volume of data and speed of tape, but you are talking reasonable sizes and
tape swapping...).

The other thing I always recommend is that your primary server should have
sufficient disk space to allow for your main repository plus a full extra
copy of db.* files etc. Again this can save a lot of time even for exercises
such as upgrading etc, or some simple testing, or even a database rebuild in
some circumstances. Copying hundreds of Gb across a network vs. local disks
can also make the difference between say a 2 and a 4 hour downtimes which
makes a difference in some organisations.

Regards
Robert

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Raghu Kumar C [mailto:RaghuKumar.c at tavant.com] 
> Sent: 23 May 2007 14:09
> To: Robert Cowham
> Subject: RE: [p4] Reducing the size of Perforce data.
> 
> Robert,
> 
> 	No it's a disk to tape backup. Is there something wrong 
> with this method? Should I be worried of anything?
> 
> Thank you,
> Raghu
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robert Cowham [mailto:robert at vaccaperna.co.uk]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2007 03:39 PM
> To: Raghu Kumar C
> Subject: RE: [p4] Reducing the size of Perforce data.
> 
> Raghu
> 
> You are doing a disk->disk->tape backup aren't you (not just
> disk->tape)?
> 
> Robert 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: perforce-user-bounces at perforce.com
> > [mailto:perforce-user-bounces at perforce.com] On Behalf Of 
> Raghu Kumar C
> > Sent: 23 May 2007 08:03
> > To: perforce-user at perforce.com
> > Subject: Re: [p4] Reducing the size of Perforce data.
> > 
> > Steve/David,
> > 
> > 	The main reason to think of a 'p4 obliterate' is to 
> reduce the number 
> > of tapes used to do the backup. By doing that if I can increase the 
> > performance of the server then well and good. I have done 
> checkpoint 
> > recoveries before to salvage space from db files.
> > 
> > 	Talking of backup server I don't have one, we do a differential 
> > backup daily and a complete backup weekly to a tape.
> > 
> > Regards
> > Raghu
> > 
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: perforce-user-bounces at perforce.com
> > [mailto:perforce-user-bounces at perforce.com] On Behalf Of David 
> > Weintraub
> > Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 08:54 PM
> > To: Raghu Kumar C
> > Cc: perforce-user at perforce.com
> > Subject: Re: [p4] Reducing the size of Perforce data.
> > 
> > As others have pointed out, there are other ways to hide the branch 
> > information.
> > 
> > * You can "delete" the branches by doing a "p4 delete". This will 
> > remove the branches from the current view of your source depot, but 
> > allows the branches to be present in older revisions.
> > 
> > * You can use the "p4 protect" to hide unused branches. 
> This is very 
> > quick, but can be tedious if you have lots of branches
> > 
> > * You can completely remove old information via "p4 
> obliterate". This 
> > is a completely permanent solution, and you will never get the 
> > information back. You also won't save any database space unless you 
> > rebuild your database from a checkpoint.
> > 
> > Do you have a backup Perforce server with a backup license, and if 
> > not, why not? The Perforce backup license is free, and a 
> backup server 
> > runs less than $5K which (compared to your Perforce 
> licenses) is dirt 
> > cheap.
> > 
> > Why not try doing a Obliterate on the backup server, then do a 
> > checkpoint and rebuild the database and see how much space 
> it actually 
> > saves and whether or not it is worth it.
> > 
> > On 5/22/07, Raghu Kumar C <RaghuKumar.c at tavant.com> wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > >         I have around 80 GB of data including my DB files. 
> > We follow
> > > early branching and there are a lot of branches that were 
> created to
> > do
> > > development work. Is it okay if I try to obliterate these
> > branches? If
> > > not is there any other way I can reduce the size of these 
> branches?
> > >
> > > Thank you,
> > > Raghu
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> > >
> > 
> > 
> > --
> > --
> > David Weintraub
> > qazwart at gmail.com
> > _______________________________________________
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> Any comments or statements made in this email are not 
> necessarily those of Tavant Technologies. The information 
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> which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or 
> privileged material. If you have received this in error, 
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