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cr8nk
Yak Posting Veteran
77 Posts |
 Posted - 2002-01-09 : 16:50:56
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| We have a server with only 10MB free disk space on the drive that our sql server databases are on. There is plenty of free space in the databases (several gigs for each database), however the operating system only sees 10MB free space on that drive. Is this a bad thing?Here is the output of xp_fixeddrivesC 1401D 1740E 9 |
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izaltsman
A custom title
1139 Posts |
Posted - 2002-01-09 : 17:10:21
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| Well, why do you have all those gigabytes of free space in your databases? Do you expect a large influx of data over a short period of time, then it probably makes sense -- your database will not need to autogrow to accomodate the new data. But unless you are running a data warehouse, I doubt this is the case for you. In which case, you should probably use DBCC SHRINKDATABASE or DBCC SHRINKFILE to release some of your unused space to the operating system. |
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cr8nk
Yak Posting Veteran
77 Posts |
Posted - 2002-01-09 : 17:19:21
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| In fact are mainly using this server for a data wharehouse and reporting of it. We have gigs of free space because we are loading about 500MB of new data on the server everyday and deleting old data off. There are two web application databases on the server as well. My main concern is the drive with 10MB of space left on it. Is that a bad practice. Will it inhibit performance, even though the databases have free space?thanks,Cr8nk |
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JamesH
Posting Yak Master
149 Posts |
Posted - 2002-01-11 : 09:44:02
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| There are many factors that would determine exactly how I managed this server, ie. is the 500MB data a 1 shot deal daily or pessimistic?, How many MB am I deleting, how often can I perform PM, Do I have adequate room for my logfiles and/or tempdb to grow in the event that the data exceeds 500MB, And how expandable is my server when I run out of space. How large are your log files for your databases? Keep an eye on them... If it were me and I were importing 500MB of data daily and 'deleting' data as well then I would try and calculate the average daily growth rate (based on new/deleted data) and then shrink the database to allow more free system disk space. I would also create a job that checked the % of space free (During non-peak times, probably weekly) and expand the database(s) based on my average daily growth if needed. Since you are deleting data, I'm assuming fairly large chunks, then I would definately run DBCC's on a regular basis(meaning as often as I could without affecting production). I'm assuming your backups are going directly to tape or another server, I personally like a local copy on my server that gets copied to a backup server or is backed up onto tape. This has saved my but many, many times. My two cents. JamesH |
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How much free disk space