What is using all my storage in SQL server

Question

I have a SQL server database that according Properties => files, is using 47GB of disk space in the primary file group.

I am 99% sure my database is not this big.

I ran the query from this post https://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/1177/determining-space-used-for-all-tables-in-a-sql-server-database/

and according to this my reserved space is only 1 GB, so how can my DB possibly be using this much space?

I have shrunk the log file but as I said above, it is the primary file that is this size

Answer 1

As per my comment: When a database file grows, it won't release space; most likely it got to 47GB at some point perhaps when you were doing a large load and you since deleted the data? Not releasing the space is intentional, and in fact shrinking your database is a dangerous path to go down unless you know what you're doing; as it'll easily cause things like fragmentation of your indexes.

You can find out how much space, and unused space, there is by using objects like sys.sp_spaceused; Which will detail the amount of free space in the unallocated space column.

As noted above, it's not advised you shrink the database unless you really must. Fragmentation will very likely occur during a shrink; which could have (significant) impacts on the performance of your database.

Answer 2

A database is made up of reserved space and of that a portion will be available space. As the db grows the available space gets smaller until an autogrowth is triggered. The autogrowth increments are set as a value or percentage. It is possible that when the database was initially created an initial value of 47023 was set. You can free up that available space back to the OS but you need to shrink the data file, not the log file, but just be cognizant of how your database is growing and how often those auto-growths are happening because there could be a performance compromise to doing that.

Answer 3

You may find it very useful to run two built in SSRS reports. To do so (in SQL Server Management Studio) right click on the database name and then ten selections down is a tab marked reports. Click on it and try the 'Disk Usager' report and the 'Disk Usage by Top Tables' report. They are very clear reports and you may be surprised at how large certain tables are.