Checkpoint in SQL Server 2016
use [TestDB];
go
checkpoint;
go
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Well it depends.
Under the simple recovery model, unless some factor is delaying log truncation, an automatic checkpoint truncates the unused section of the transaction log.
In contrast, under the full and bulk-logged recovery models, once a log backup chain has been established, automatic checkpoints do not cause log truncation.
From - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189573(v=SQL.110).aspx?WT.mc_id=aff-n-in-loc--pd
Meaning of checkpoint - It writes all dirty pages for your current database to disk. Dirty pages are data pages that have been entered into the buffer cache and modified, but not yet written to disk.
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It may help to be able to shrink the LDF, once that's done, see https://technet.microsoft.com/library/ms179355.aspx and https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189085.aspx and important https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345414.aspx
"No checkpoint has occurred since the last log truncation" (quoted from the last link) can be a reason for delayed log truncation. But also notice:
If you, in general, have problems with large LDF files, reading up and understanding the internal structure of the LDF file can help, a typical reason is long-running transactions.
Anyway, you don't enforce log shrinking with a checkpoint, but you remove one reason for a delay of log truncation.
Also, last not least, if you want to really shrink the physical size of the LDF file, you need to use DBCC SHRINKFILE, but look at the bigger picture here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178037.aspx
In the long run you back up the logs and thus keep all truncations, so the disk space usage always grows and never shrinks just because the active MDF and LDF file sizes can shrink. SQL Server is not only about active data, it's a database server implementing all ACID criteria, especially consistency. Once you could shrink the LDF it's also likely to grow up again, as the need for that space once was there and likely repeats, unless you can explain it with an unusual operation like bulk operations in full recovery mode. You finally can move off old log backups and store them elsewhere, so removing unused space from the active files always only is a temporary reduction.
Bye, Olaf.