shrinkfile and ntext column

  • I have an NTEXT column in a table.  SP-SPACEUSED shows about 16 gig reserved, 3 gig used and 13 gig unused.  There are approximately 3 million rows in the table

    When I do a max(datalength) on the NTEXT column, I get 18.  The rest of the columns only add about 150 characters.

    I have tried DBCC SHRINKFILE to free up this unused space, but it does not work.

    Does anyone know why there is so much unused space in the table and how to free this space?

  • This is a known problem since December 1, 2003 and there is no fix, just workarounds.

    PRB: DBCC SHRINKFILE and SHRINKDATABASE Commands May Not Work Because of Sparsely Populated Text, Ntext, or Image Columns

    http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;324432

    Also see the forum post thread from last week at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/forums/shwmessage.aspx?forumid=5&messageid=237056#bm238284

    SQL = Scarcely Qualifies as a Language

  • sorry can't leap across to the link .. if you use dbcc chrinkfile(1)  for example this attempts to shrink the datafile back to its original creation size. I've found this is pretty good for cleaning up lost text or ntext space.

    [font="Comic Sans MS"]The GrumpyOldDBA[/font]
    www.grumpyolddba.co.uk
    http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/grumpyolddba/

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