Home Forums Discussions Problems Hard drive filling up quickly

The hard drive on my main computer is filling up.
It is a 250 GB drive and it is dedicated exclusively to run the AC database, never used for surfing the internet or any other application. The computer started in that role about one year ago.
Hard drive has now used 220 GB.
What I found weird is that my back up file (with imported items included) is less than 3 GB.
My cousin is computer guru and told me it could be old Log files, but I can not find them.
Any help on this is really appreciated.
I already searched the forum and could not find a similar problem.
I will call support in two days if no answer.
Thank you

Refer to post Automatically Delete Old Backups. This should help.

Thanks Ronuk for the quick reply, I'll try it first thing tomorrow morning.

Ronuk that's a good answer, but it assumes DrVazquez knows everything about the backup folder. It may also lead him to believe he needs to use the script which could be difficult. So, please don't mind if I add to your post.

______

The backup automatically backs up a backup file to a folder in your Amazing Charts folder on our server. The folder is named BACKUP and will be at the top left of your AC folder.

No matter where you set the backups to go, one backup will always go there. So go to the Amazing Charts folder on your server, open the BACKUP folder and you will likely see many backups each 3GBs or more. Delete all but one.

This will give you your space back. After this, you will need to continually go there and delete backups or use the script that was posted in the other thread as Ronuk suggests.

There is also a way to delete these files from Amazing Utilities, but it only deletes so many.

You could back up your Imported Items separately to another drive, which would allow you to create many more backups before you took up too much space.

You have to clear the old backups to make space for the new ones. Ronuk is telling you of a way to do that automatically. Bert is saying it should be as easy as going into the backup folder, highlighting the old backups and erasing them. You can use an automated batch file and task scheduler as Alex suggested. I personally used VBScript to do it. His method is simple and effective: http://amazingcharts.com/ub/ubbthreads.php/topics/44632/Automatically_Delete_Old_Backu#Post44632

Agree with all of the above. We use a little program called Cyber-D's autodelete which you can set to automatically remove files. You choose the number of old back-ups you want to keep, and once the process is set-up, you never have to think about it again.

Sandeep and Jon are correct. And the actual program, which I learned about from Jon after using scripts is probably easier to use for mid-level computer users.

I didn't bring it up as I didn't want to steal Alex's thunder. Two things:

DrVazquez needed to know where the backups were.

AC NEEDS TO STOP THE AUTOMATIC BACKUPS TO THAT FOLDER. Sorry for shouting, and I know why they do it, but no other program I know of does it that way. Generally as soon as you set up the backup, it asks for a path. Even someone who doesn't know where the Start button is, knows not to put the backup in the folder. I hope anyway.

As far as backups go, I think when you run it, a message should come up saying, "Browse to a location either on a different hard drive or an external drive. It is not a good idea to put your backups on the same drive or in the AC folder."

"If you backup contains your imported items, it will eventually take up a lot of space in your back up folder. More importantly, if you back up only, you will only be able to back a small amount of data due to low bandwidth. We recommend not backing up over a GB of data, and you can see how that will grow exponentially with your II."

You may click here if you do not wish to see this again.

PS We are working on a backup that will say, "Would you like the AC backup to delete your last backup? If so, how many backups would you like stored before it deletes the last backup.

I leave it to JBS to word it better.