Recently I created a data collector data base using the Data Collection feature of the 2008 R2. The bad news is the DB I use to collect the performance data is growing in size very bad and I need to manage the size.
How can I manage the size?
Can I delete data for say data older than 5 days?
Sure you can, but do you want to?
Typically you want maintain some good samples over long periods.
If your database is growing too quickly, try reducing the frequency of samples for most parameters.
And, be generous with the space allocated. How fast *is* your database growing? How much space do you plan to allocate? You might well plan in the hundreds of gigabytes per year, for monitoring one large system or several smaller ones,
to get the best use out of the data. Disk space is cheap these days - though of course less so on your prime SAN where most databases tend to end up, but still think about the problem and discuss it with your management, if you're serious about getting
the real value out of performance data.
Josh
