How Does Alfesco store file version data

[hsturner]

Hi Guys,

We want to make sure we have enough storage capacity in the database(?) to store the files and the versions of the file.  My question is how does Alfresco store the previous versions. Does it store a whole file for each version or only what's changed between versions.  It's not much of a concern on smaller documents which are kilobytes in size, but we have some video authors that have files 4 + GB in size and may go through 20 revisions before final edit. This could easily eat up our storage in a hurray.

[jpotts]

The database is only used for metadata, not for the actual files themselves. The files reside on the file system. Alfresco will store complete copies of multiple versions of the same file. It does not store incremental deltas between files.

You can periodically prune document version trees and you can clean old versions from the file system to keep your file system storage under control.

Jeff

[bisana]

Hi Jeff,
I have one doubt, if my DB gets corrupted,then only my metadata I will be losing, will I lose the files checked in

[mrogers]

Nope,  but you should make sure you backup of both your content store and your database.  And your alfresco customisations.

[huarte]

Hi Jeff,

In your message you talk about a way to purge old files

"You can periodically prune document version trees and you can clean old versions from the file system to keep your file system storage under control."

Can you explain in more detail what would be the optimal procedure ?

I have tried to remove the property " versionable " of the web interface , and the historic disappears , but the file is still in the " contentstore ."

I'm thinking of creating a WebScript to solve the problem.