Thanks for the input. You all confirmed my thoughts, but I just wanted to see what everyone else was doing.

Thanks again!

I am only trying to use 4gb of memory. I was under the impression you only needed to use /PAE and AWE if you wanted to use more than...

I forgot to mention that the backups are being stored on a 'disk" presented from a SAN so there is no problem with high IO's on the backup disk. ...

 Tim you can do this but it will take a little work depending on what you are trying to do.  SQL server 2005 has the same capability but it...

I am not sure that you can keep users from seeing database they don't have access to.  It would be nice if you could.  I just make sure the user...

Thanks for the tips.  I kind of figured it was going to take that long.  I will look in to breaking it into chunks.

My 2 cents:

1) Reindex

2) Set new size

3)Disk defrag

Thanks for the advice.  I will have to investigate more.  In the mean time I have set an alert to notify me when the Database is within 10 gigs of...

The data files are on a SAN so there really isn't any worry about running out of space.  The reason I have the auto grow set so high is that...

You need to run a log back up with the truncate_only switch, and then run dbcc shrinkfile to shrink the log file back down.  That should get your log file...

Thanks!  That is what I needed!

Yes, I have thought of doing "indexdefrag", and I think I might give that a try.  I wouldn't be running this job during production hours anyway, but should the job...

Thanks racosta!!

I will give your suggestions a try.  Any idea if I should be seeing that large of a difference in time between reindex and drop / create??

I am using Embarcadero DBArtisan, but you can use "DBCC PROCCACHE" or SQL Performance monitor.

Unfortunatly I know of no easy way to figure this out.  If you go to SQL books online, and search for "Calculating database size", there is a lengthy formula there. ...