Truncating your transaction log.

First, HAPPY NEW YEAR GUYS!!

Now, some actual blogging...

Here I was, trying to restore our metadata only database into a production server, getting constantly an error messaging saying that it was waaay to big for the available space. Well, my concern was that the entire back up of the database was only 6MB, and the database itself only contains tables with very basic data.

What is worst, the space available on that production drive was 14GB, so gosh, it simply didn't make any sense. Well, after reviewing the original metadata-only database I realized that our constant adding, updating and deleting of structures made our transaction log simply huge. (40gb)

So, after some reading I found this nice recipe to cut down the fat of your log database:

First, backup your existing log file by running

BACKUP LOG  TO DISK = ''

Now, shrink the transaction log, executing this

DBCC SHRINKFILE (, ) WITH NO_INFOMSGS

File name is the transaction log filename and target size you wanted to be, don't be too demanding on the shrinking, but as a hint, I ended up making mine only 1MB cause we don't need a log on our metadata db. :)


Update:
My apologies, the database in question is MSSQL 2005. Thanks for the feedback.