Optimize Neo4j disk usage - transaction log retention

Introduction

By default Neo4j is set to retain transaction logs (used for database backup operations) for 7 days, however, transaction logs can grow significantly in size, increasing the overall size of the graph.db file and therefore reduce overall performance. If you are facing disk space/performance issues due to the size of the graph.db file, you can change the transaction log retention time.

See https://neo4j.com/docs/operations-manual/current/configuration/transaction-logs/ for more information on how to set different values.

Update process

Open and edit the following file:

Microsoft Windows traditional installer:
%APPDATA%\CAST\ImagingSystem\neo4j\neo4j.conf
    
Docker Installer extension (located in the folder created when unzipping the extension):
neo4j\configuration\neo4j.conf

Info

Microsoft Windows via traditional installer

This file is located in the protected %APPDATA% location, therefore you must open the file with elevated permission (this is usually achieved by right clicking your text editor in the Windows start menu and selecting Run as administrator):

Linux

You may need to use elevated permissions to edit this file (for example use sudo).

Alter the following line and specify the retention time as necessary (if the line is not present in the file, pleased add it) - for example, to change to 3 days:

dbms.tx_log.rotation.retention_policy=3 days

Restart the Neo4j Windows service / Docker container to ensure the changes are taken into account.