Log File Management

Log files are your company’s asset and irreplaceable. We strongly recommend that you retain your historical log files for as long as possible. If space is a concern consider compressing your log files. Log files typically compress down very nicely to anywhere between 90-98% of their original size. Sawmill is also capable of natively reading compressed files so there’s no need to spend time decompressing files to process them with Sawmill. Compressed log files also reduce bandwidth if you are reading log files remotely, or moving files between remote servers. The most important reason to keep log files is to be able to rebuild your Sawmill database in the event of a catastrophic failure. If you retain your historical log files recovering a database is always possible, and it’s a simple operation to rebuild your database. If you choose to follow only one of the best practices and guidelines, make the choice to retain your historical log data. Historical logs are cheap insurance (and typically use very little disk space when compressed) and having them will save you from data loss if you ever need to recover a database from the ground up.