Removing old (semantically versioned) NuGet packages

Question

We are running into issues with our NuGet server when we reach 100 packages.

We have multiple packages, all semantically versioned (3 digits), from multiple projects, in our NuGet repository.

What is the best way to clean the older packages up without violating the NuGet packaging philosophy?

For now, we are considering a scheduled job that periodically parses the package file names, and keeps one of each minor revision (with the highest bugfix value), reasoning that this would be the version that most consumers of the package would want. We have also considered cleaning up all, but one of each major version (with the highest minor value). Are these sound approaches?

UPDATE: Due to working in a dysfunctional funding environment, development time, although more expensive than hardware, is more easily obtained, so while it may be cheaper to fix the server itself; experience in the environment tells us that the cleanup approach described above will be more easily accomplished than fixing the server.

Answer 1

We sidestepped the problem by replacing the Nuget server with a UNC folder share.