Version:3.00 beta 28.2

I have a big database (1 million hands) and an old computer. I would like to remove some hands from my active database in the hope of improving PT performance. Recently my computer has been stalling frequently while playing (using HUD and poker client but no other programs).

So what is the best way to remove some hands from the database? Over half of the hands are at rooms at which I no longer play so I could just delete them if needs be. Obviously though I would prefare to safe them elsewhere on hard drive or better still in an auxiliary database. Thanks for your help with this, I tried fiddling around with database management but didn’t get the desired results.

P.S. I have defragged my hard drive with PSQL turned off, but it didn’t improve the performance.

See these tutorials:
Tutorial: Exporting Sessions
Tutorial: Purging Sessions

If you do them in that order then you can export your hands as a backup before purging (removing) them from your database.
To make a backup of your database before you do this (or generally, for backup purposes) see the Database / Postgres FAQ.