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Truncating the transaction log

  • December 30, 2005 at 5:02 pm

    #170213

    Hi,

    The BOL states that a transaction log should be truncated manually only under special circumstances and that when that is done, a full database backup must be taken as soon as possible. What are such special cirumstances? Why can't a differential database backup suffice in such a situation?

    Thanks,

    Karim

  • January 2, 2006 at 6:28 am

    #612276

    If you have a database which is configured to have a recovery model of 'Full', and you carry out an update to many rows in a table, then the transaction log will increase in size significantly.  It is not uncommon for a transaction log to take up all the available disk space in the process, and then the update will fail and roll back.

    If you carry out such an update, you might like to consider truncating the transaction log afterwards, then completing a full backup in order to recover the disk space.

    Regards,

    Martin

  • January 2, 2006 at 8:55 am

    #612300

    Martin has a good situation there. It's mainly for events that aren't regular, some non-standard event that causes an unusual growth, such as a data load.

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