SQL Server Filling Up Fast

[abillybob]

Hi All

 

So we have an SQL server here that the company relies pretty heavily on. Around 3-4 weeks ago I had to expand it's hard drive on our virtual server because the 500GB it was allocated was full.

 

It's now already reached 800GB (I've given it 1TB) can't give it anymore as we don't have the resources, I've contacted the company who tend to deal with it but they're not very helpful and I was wondering if I could do anything to free up some space? I don't want it to get to the point of no return and me having to sort it out last minute although my SQL knowledge isn't great. Do any of you guys have any suggestions?

 

Thanks

 

[pete]

Could you begin by telling us what's taking up the space? (using Treesize, WinDirStat, or Wiztee if you're not sure).

 

Is it SQL backups not being cleaned up? SQL temp database gone daft? Developers working in production creating copies of databases?

[abillybob]

It seems to be something called si.mdf that is around 700GB large all the other files seem pretty small in comparison. I used treesize

[pete]

OK, so a SQL database called "si" is consuming 700GB of data.

 

Do you know what that database is used for (the software that stores data in it) and how quickly it's grown historically (say last year)? Has usage changed this year that would account for the increased size?

 

You can see what's using the most space by launching SQL Management Studio, right-clicking on the database and going to Reports > Disk Usage by Table and then sorting by the data column, but without an idea about what it should look like I'd contact the company who tends to deal with it. Do they work under a support contract?