Confluence database has become too large

Question

Hello!

We have been using confluence for a long time (since 2018). Initially, the size of the backups was about 400 MB. But at the moment on July 22, 2021, the backup size is more than 2 GB.

There are a lot of pages and sections, and manually deleting attachments is a very long and inconvenient process.
Please tell me if it is possible to automatically delete all old versions of attachments / pages. Or are there other options to make the backup size smaller?

Daniel Ebers · Answer

Hi @ib_sakh

am I getting it correctly your concern is mainly about the size of the database (or better database dump)?

Which database are you using (MySQL / PostgreSQL / ...)?
Some databases tend to now release space (even if content is deleted) - called sometimes 'bloat'.
Especially seen on MySQL when they say dumping the database and restoring it back could fix this specific architectural circumstace.

If you meant to include file system to your question I would question first where the biggest amounts of data reside. Attachments? Logs? Temporary data of any kind?

In case you could give more information surely Community members are able to go more into detail.

Cheers,
Daniel

Benjamin_tmh9yg · Answer

@ib_sakh :

I would start checking your logs and backup directories to see anything to delete there before deleting confluence data. If not careful, the backups will contain the previous backups. What ends up happening, you may end up with a bunch of backups of backups.

There's also the option of just backing up your DB and the rest of the filesystem directories and exclude the attachment directory. Then sync your attachment directory to another location so that if the attachments are gone...you can always copy them back from the other server.

Hope this helps