Large amount of data where only a small amount of it changes each day.

[Rich Kazan]

I need to track the state of a piece of equipment on a day-by-day basis. The state of this equipment has thousands of parts, but only a small amount of them change on a daily basis. The changes are usually additions or removals. Once a part is attached, it usually remains there for the remainder of the job. However, I have to allow for parts being removed, added, and changed on any day. The ordering of the parts is also critical. To track the state of the equipment, I can make a copy of the previous days state, then modify it accordingly. The problem with this is that with a list this size I end up with a lot of duplicated records.

How can I track just the changes to the part list?

Also, I am talking about the database implementation, not java code.