Tag: Database Maintenance

  • How to Shrink SQL Server Database Files in Chunks

    🔧Part of the DBA-Tools Project, copy/paste SQL Server scripts and health checks.In: Storage & Capacity A data file that’s grown far past what the database actually needs, after a one-off bulk load, an archive cleanup, a migration that left behind a much bigger footprint than the data now occupies, eventually needs to come back down.…

    Written by

    Peter Whyte

  • DBA Scripts: Get Suspect Pages and Integrity Checks

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    🔧Part of the DBA-Tools Project, copy/paste SQL Server scripts and health checks.In: Backup & Recovery Corruption Evidence Already Recorded, and a Pre-Check Before You Look Deeper Last DBCC CHECKDB tells you how stale your corruption checks are. These two scripts sit on either side of that: Get-SuspectPages surfaces pages SQL Server has already flagged as…

    Written by

    Peter Whyte

  • Kill All User Sessions on a Database in SQL Server

    When you need to drop, restore, or change database settings, active user sessions often get in the way. SQL Server will block these operations until all connections are cleared. In busy environments, waiting is rarely practical. This post shows a safe, deliberate, and review-first way to identify and kill all user sessions connected to a…

    Written by

    Peter Whyte

  • DBA Scripts: Get Missing Indexes

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    🔧Part of the DBA-Tools Project, copy/paste SQL Server scripts and health checks.In: Maintenance & Automation › Index Maintenance Every time SQL Server builds an execution plan that could have been improved with a better index, it makes a note of it. Those notes accumulate in memory and are queryable through the sys.dm_db_missing_index_* DMVs, and combined…

    Written by

    Peter Whyte

  • DBA Scripts: Get Index Fragmentation Across Databases

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    🔧Part of the DBA-Tools Project, copy/paste SQL Server scripts and health checks.In: Maintenance & Automation › Index Maintenance Index fragmentation checks are usually written for one database at a time, which is fine until you inherit an instance with forty databases and no idea which of them has been skipping maintenance. Running a per-database script…

    Written by

    Peter Whyte

  • Deleting Rows in Batches in SQL Server

    Deleting large volumes of data from a SQL Server table looks simple, but it can cause real problems if done carelessly. A single large DELETE can: When you’re cleaning up historical data or running routine maintenance, deleting rows in batches is usually the safest and most predictable approach. This post shows a simple, production-safe pattern…

    Written by

    Peter Whyte

  • Applying Data Retention Safely in SQL Server

    Data retention in SQL Server usually means deleting old data in a controlled and repeatable way. That might be driven by compliance requirements, table growth that’s starting to hurt performance, SQL Server Express size limits, or simply keeping log and audit tables under control. Whether this is a one-off cleanup or a permanent maintenance task,…

    Written by

    Peter Whyte

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