Why are moodle backups so big?

Why are moodle backups so big?

by SVI eSolutions -
Number of replies: 3

I have moodle 2.4 and I don't want to have to recreate courses for each session. I have tried to backup and restore the content into an empty course. I have also tried using the import feature. In both cases it never finishes, the page just hangs. I don't have any errors.

The server limit is 100M and 600 seconds...

When I look at the backup sizes they are all around 900M, why are they soooo huge?

Even when I try to import a course that is only about 50M, the page hangs.

Why I try only importing items at a time many of the images are missing...

What am I doing wrong? What can I do to copy content into another course?

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In reply to SVI eSolutions

Re: Why are moodle backups so big?

by Tim Hunt -
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A Moodle backup file is a zip file with a different extension.

Rename .mbz -> .zip, and unconpress, and you can see what is taking the space.

In reply to SVI eSolutions

Re: Why are moodle backups so big?

by Don Hinkelman -
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One reason you may get a large backup file of a course, is because the accompanying Question Bank is huge. Perhaps you are getting all the questions from the whole site rather than the few questions used in the course that you expected to backup.