SQL 2000 database - How to shrink and what to expect.
Microsoft SQL 2000 database on Server 2003
My support people told me to "shrink my database". I know how to perform this action but would like to know what to expect and what I should consider before doing this action as I have never done it on a live database. I have only done this to static access databases. I have 160G free on my server.
My database is currently 115G and should be around 30G. My .ldf file ballooned from a normal of around 5G to 85G. So I called the people who support the application which I am running and their support people said to shrink the database after a good backup. My backup executed successfully last night.
1. Is shrinking a database this big going to eliminate access to the database for an extended period of time?
2. When I do shrink the database what options are recommended:
Maximum free space in files after shrinking: "default is 0%"
Move pages to beginning of file before shrinking "unchecked"
3. Also is it recommended to leave the main database alone .mdf and only shrink the .ldf file?
My support people told me to "shrink my database". I know how to perform this action but would like to know what to expect and what I should consider before doing this action as I have never done it on a live database. I have only done this to static access databases. I have 160G free on my server.
My database is currently 115G and should be around 30G. My .ldf file ballooned from a normal of around 5G to 85G. So I called the people who support the application which I am running and their support people said to shrink the database after a good backup. My backup executed successfully last night.
1. Is shrinking a database this big going to eliminate access to the database for an extended period of time?
2. When I do shrink the database what options are recommended:
Maximum free space in files after shrinking: "default is 0%"
Move pages to beginning of file before shrinking "unchecked"
3. Also is it recommended to leave the main database alone .mdf and only shrink the .ldf file?
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Dont forgot to take regular backups of your Log
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Out of the 88G of space being allocated to the .ldf file only 320MB actually had data.