I recently deleted a very large amount on data from a site (~500 gigs). Unfortunately the database still shows a size of 570 gigs to the operating system. When I did a stsadm -o ENUMSITES -url thesite. It shows onyl 112 gig of used storage space. I have run the DefragIndices from this KB article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943345. What else can I do to reclaim this space. We are extremely close to filling up this drive array. Thanks.

It looks like all the space is going towards the AllDocVersions table. What can I do in Sharepoint to clear these out? I have deleted the versions in the document library and emptied the ercycle bins.

did you run the Disk Usage by Table report in SQl Server Management Studio? if you dont know you can: Open SQL Server Management Studio and right-click a database name, choose Reports > Standard Reports > Disk Usage By Table report if you share the result then we can give you some certain anwsers. hope this help thanks -ws SharePoint administrator, MCTS,MCITP

The database for the site collection will always grown within SQL, and never shrink, UNLESS you run routine maintenance jobs to shrink this size back down. I would suggest that your transaction log may be of a large size too, unless its being truncated as part of a routine backup operation, either SQL Server or a suitable alternative like Symantec's BackupExec. You can schedule the DB Shrink to run once a week, and will ensure your databases are relative in size - but I suggest you always leave acertain percentage as free to ensure performance isn't affected (i.e. your DB auto growth isn't set to the default 1MB)! See: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190757.aspx for more informatin. Regards | Aaron www.aaron-rendell.co.uk | SharePoint Consultant | Microsoft Gold Partner - Silversands, Poole, Dorset, England

That is how I found out the AllDocVersions is the table taking up all the space. It says there is 468264448KB reserved, 468241632KB Data and are 22,763KB unused space. I have cleared out all the bogus versions (had a process that created tons of unneed versions) and emptied the recycle bins. I have checked the transaction log and it is less than 1gig. I know how to shrink the database and normally wouldn't but this is a termendous amount of space that needs to be freed up.

Hi Archeious, I suggest that you read this white paper "Database maintenance for Office SharePoint Server 2007 (white paper)". It contains information and procedure to measure and reduce fragmentation and shrink Sharepoint database. Hope that helps you, MarioMon Blog/My Blog (in french) LinkedIn

Thanks for the suggestion but I have already download and implemented the steps in the DB maintenance white paper.

its basically depends how much free space you have on your content, Shrink Db is good for one time but you cant run it multiple time because its hurt your performance and even not recommended by the MSFT. i can also suggest to see the audit log table as well because sometime audit log table consuming too much space as well. for DB shrinking i recomend you following steps, * Perform a full SQL backup to reclaim free space; take the full backup using SQL Server, not a third-party application that may not shrink the transaction log * run the shrink db using the SQL server management studio http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190757.aspx. fo rm the best option is select 6. again remember its only one time but if you wana shrink multiple time, then may be you have performance issue, hope this help thanks -wsSharePoint administrator, MCTS,MCITP

I don't think I am explaining myself very well. I have a 580gig database, when I check the size of the database using STSADM -o ENUMSITE it shows a size of 112 gig. This is because I had a run away process that create numerous redundant versions. I cleared out the old version but the AllDocVersions table is still showing 580gig in size. I have gone through the steps of the database maintenance plan bu the space is not recovering. The shrink database command will not do much because the report free space is relatively low.

Hi Archeious, I'm having the same issue. Did you find any solutions? Thanks

Hi Archeious I dont think this can be done ,however you can try a workround of migrating the site content to new blank content database by using the command stsadm -help mergecontentdbs and delete the old one . Cheers VJ

hi I dont think this can be done ,however you can try a workround of migrating the site content to new blank content database by using the command stsadm -help mergecontentdbs and delete the old one . Cheers VJ

Hey, same problem here. But the difference is that in my case the documents really were there... in the 2nd recycle bin (in the "Deleted from end user Recycle Bin") . That's the reason why this space was not showed when I executed stsadm -o enumsites. More info here. Hope it helps.

Have you tried finding/deleting orphaned sites? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288016(v=office.12).aspx then right click the content DB> Tasks > Shrink > Database. This will free up unused space on the content DB. I had performed this after I had split a large content DB in two. The original kept large size until the Shrink DB was completed.