Important Note: We don't recommend to shrink your database. You can involve your Database administrator to perform this action. Before you make any changes, please make sure you have taken the backup of your Database which you are going to shrink. You will face an issue if the Backup is not available.
Database administrators may face an issue where their SQL Database becomes large in size. In this case, DBA will need to shrink the Database and allocate free space to your SQL server. Before you proceed with the Database shrinking, you must need to know about the process involving in the Database shrinking.
Shrinking SQL Database is a process of removing the unused space from your Database. You may face an issue with Index fragmentation after shrinking the MSSQL Database. SQL will perform the process where data will be moved from the end of the database file to the unused space and free-up the space at the end of the Database file. The process of shrinking will always move from the end of the file to the front side.
Option 1 : Shrink Database from Microsoft SQL Management Studio :
Here, are the steps to shrink the Database from MSSQL Management Studio.
- Login to your SQL Server with MSSQL Management Studio.
- Right Click on the Database which you need to shrink >> Tasks >> Shrink >> Database.
- Click on the OK button.
Option 2 : Shrink Database Using Transact SQL Command :
- Login to your SQL Server with MSSQL Management Studio.
- Click on New query.
- Hit the below query by changing your database name and target percentage.
DBCC SHRINKDATABASE (DatabaseName, target percent);
This is how you can shrink your Database.