Keeping archive sive under control

Alexandre Takacs wrote:Hi

Hello!

Probably a newbie question but I can't seem to find a way to allocate a fixed size - say 1Tb - to my archive a let QR manage it.

Not per se.

You can add a "free space" condition to your merge and compact actions that will only run when the free space on the archive's volume drops below a fixed threshold. The idea is that you let the archive grow as needed. When the volume starts to fill up, the merge and compact actions start to run and begin discarding older items until your free space is above the threshold again. That's actually one of the schemes the capture assistant will set up for you.

If you absolutely have to cap the size of an archive at 1TB, I'd suggest creating a 1TB partition for that archive. QRecall is smart enough to stop capturing when the free space on the volume drops to a critically low level.

There have been a few requests over the years for an "archive size is ..." condition, but it's still on the wish list. I'll give it a +1.

Also compact action is just unworkable with my (consumer grade, admittedly) NAS:

First, make sure you're getting the best performance you can. The compact action does a lot of I/O. If you have multiple computer systems, use the system with the fastest connection to the NAS (preferably wired Ethernet) to do the compact. You'll probably get an order or magnitude better performance over WiFi.

The compact action also performs the bulk of its work incrementally. That means you can stop the compact at any time and start it again the next day and it will, more or less, pick up where it left off.

To automate this, schedule the compact to start every evening (say 9:00 PM) on a computer you don't mind leaving on. In the compact action, add a "stop after X hours" or "stop at XX:XX" condition to stop the compact after it has run for, say, 9 hours. Let that run every night for a week, and you should get caught up.

The need/benefit of compacting an archive is sporadic and infrequent. Once compacted, you probably won't need to compact it again for a month or more (unless you capture and roll over a lot of data). The compact action is smart and won't do much, beyond basic maintenance, most days if the free space in the archive hasn't grown too much.