have 9 million rows HELP!!!!!

[thechasboi]

I need to get rid of 5 milliom rows from this table. It is contained in sql server 2005. I try a limited delete statement buyt get nothing but time outs. How can I get rid of these extra rows. My plan is to write a stored procedure that has a timer on it to execute every month or so. But I need to get rid of these rows in the mean time. Thanks for the reply.

[bubbisthedog]

How many records are not going to be deleted?

[thechasboi]

I only want rows that are a year old or newer. Thanks for the reply. I tried an sql atatement but a time out keeps happening. Any suggestions.

[mattyblah]

delete top 5000 from table where <criteria>
while @@rowcount > 0
begin
delete top 5000 from table where <criteria>
end

[thechasboi]

mattyblah

I wrote a tiny stored proc that deleted on month of data at a time. it took a long time for the first few time I executed this proc but once it started to go faster I wrote to delete several months at a time. I am slowly chewing away at this data. Thanks for the posts.