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The title says it all really – I have a single file named 'a0000000.gdbtable’ in my default file geodatabase that is 60 GB in size. I have a number of other files with .gdbtable extension that aren't nearly as big. Just wondering what it is and whether I can delete it or make it smaller? It's taking up too much space!

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2 Answers 2

up vote 7 down vote accepted

Have you tried running the Compact tool on your file geodatabase? Compacting could get your geodatabase size down. I would not recommend deleting any of the files in the file geodatabase structure, as you are likely to kill it doing that. You say the "default" file geodatabase...personally I try to not keep anything in there that is of any importance and every once in a while delete the whole geodatabase and recreate a new one just to keep it trim and snappy. If you have edited the geodatabase a lot, then Compacting might indeed help.

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Compacting is a good way of keeping the indexes down so +1 from me. However, if you are accessing the data through python, the compacting of it can create access issues. If you don't need the data in it i.e. you are creating new tables in it all the time, another option is to write a scrip that deletes it and recreates it on the fly and just run that script as a precursor to doing any work on it. Works a treat for me. –  Hairy Jan 30 '12 at 15:08
Wow, that worked really well - went from 60GB down to 3! Exactly what I was after, thanks! Jay –  jay Feb 2 '12 at 4:09

You can move the data that you don't want to edit to a separate file database and compress that database.

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ok thanks for the suggestion - compacting worked a charm but will keep moving and compressing in mind.cheers –  jay Feb 2 '12 at 4:10

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