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SQL Log Files (LDF) Not Smaller After Truncation

KB ID: 1876
Product: Veeam Backup & Replication
Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows
Published: 2014-04-21
Last Modified: 2022-07-19
Languages: DE
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Challenge

After Veeam Backup & Replication or Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows successfully truncates a SQL Server  Database with Application-Aware Processing enabled, the SQL Log File (.ldf) does not become smaller.

Cause

This is due to the fact that the LDF file itself is a container, when truncation occurs the internals of the LDF are cleared and space is freed within it, but the LDF itself is not made smaller.

One could manually shrink or configure “Auto Shrink” to make the LDF itself physically smaller.

Solution

Considerations regarding Shrinking

The information provided below is a limited explanation of shrinking and is only intended to demonstrate how to perform a shrink operation. Veeam Support highly recommends before shrinking, you review options with your SQL Administrator and conduct independent research. Many tech articles recommend against shrinking when it is not strictly necessary. Before performing a shrink operation, you should fully understand the impacts of shrinking (e.g. fragmentation and performance).

Advised reading regarding SQL shrinking can be found here:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/databases/shrink-a-file

To view the actual free space within the LDF file, perform the following.

  1. Open SQL Management Studio and connect to the SQL instance where the database in question is located.
  2. Right-Click on the database and go to Tasks>Shrink>Files
shrink
  1. Switch to "Log" under [File type:]
spacetoshrink
This will display the currently allocated space and the available free space. The database in this example is set for "Simple" recovery model, which keeps the log size low. When a SQL database is configured for "Full" recovery model, the LDF could be considerably larger depending on the time between truncation events.
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