topr8 - 8:42 pm on Sep 12, 2011 (gmt 0)

i'm not sure i qualify as a well informed dba, however i do think it good practice to archive old data that isn't being updated - the usual way would be into an archive table as you have suggested per day/week/month/year, whatever seems reasonable.

of course it would be easy enough to run queries on the entire dataset using UNION if required.

would it be possible to create aggregate/sum data that is acceptable every quarter or so, which could be written to another table in whatever appropriate manner and the original raw data deleted or permanently archived off site (eg deleted from the db to help your dump problem)