Over storage limit? Reducing our storage footprint; our lessons learned.

Fathima1
Mega Guru

2 hours ago

Need help in understanding what is safe to delete and what is not. 

 

Used method to clean storage. 

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Itallo Brandão
Giga Guru

2 hours ago

Hi @Fathima1 ,

Reducing storage footprint is a critical maintenance task. To answer your question on "what is safe," here is a breakdown based on typical "High Consumption" tables.

1. The "Safe to Delete" (Quick Wins) These tables contain transient data that usually doesn't hold long-term business value.

  • Import Set Rows (sys_import_set_row): These should be cleaned up automatically after 7 days. If this table is huge, check your Table Cleaners (sys_auto_flush). It is safe to delete old import data.

  • System Logs (syslog, syslog_transaction, etc.): Check for logs older than 30 or 60 days. If you have a custom script spamming errors, this table can explode. Safe to delete old entries.

  • Emails (sys_email): Many organizations keep emails forever. Archiving or deleting emails older than 1 or 2 years is usually safe and frees up massive space.

2. The "Handle with Care" (Attachments)

  • Attachments (sys_attachment & sys_attachment_doc): This is often the #1 storage consumer.

    • Strategy: You can script a cleanup of attachments on Closed Incidents/Tickets older than X years.

    • Tip: Look for "Orphaned" attachments (attachments where the target table record no longer exists).

3. The "Danger Zone" (DO NOT Delete Manually)

  • Audit Data (sys_audit): This is likely one of your largest tables.

    • WARNING: Never run a deleteMultiple() on sys_audit. It causes massive database lag and can freeze your instance.

    • Solution: Use Archive Rules (System Archiving) to move old Incident/Task data to the archive tables. This automatically handles the audit data safely.

Recommendation: The Diagnostic First Step Before deleting anything, go to the generic database view to see exactly who the offender is:

  1. Type sys_db_object.list in the navigator.

  2. Personalize the list columns and add "Disk space (bytes)".

  3. Sort Z-A to see your Top 10 largest tables.

This ensures you are cleaning the right table.

If this response helps you, please mark it as Accepted Solution.
This helps the community grow and assists others in finding valid answers faster.

Best regards,
Brandão.

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