Trending database and table sizes helps give you an idea of what to expect, and, sometimes, points out problems and their root causes. I even go so far as to monitor the disk space, file growth rates, and have a report going out telling me that “according to your current growth trends, you’ll run out of space on this day”. That last part will have to be another post since getting disk space can be kinda tricky depending on how your disks are set up; you need to go outside of SQL Server to grab the size of mountpoints if you use them. Don’t worry about mountpoints right now, if you don’t know the term that usually means that you can swap out the word “drive” and have everything I say be accurate for your environment.

First, this is lightweight stuff, there’s really no reason to capture it more than once a day, and it will only add up to several MB for a year’s worth of data. You’re not going to kill yourself doing this, you’re not going to stare at the data every day taking up your time, but you’re going to look like a heavyweight when you put this into action and reference this data to others.

Second, I do have other similar posts doing snapshots of this same info for Table and File sizes. It’s basically the same thing just different in how you’re using it and if you’ll have a historical view of it.

Database sizes

Lets start with the databases because, well, they’re bigger. I capture it all, the database name, logical file name, file type (row, logs, etc), filegroup, allocated space, used space, max size, growth rate, if it’s percent growth, and the drive/mountpoint it’s on. Other than dividing the appropriate numbers by 1024 twice to store all my sizes in MB, everything gets stored in native format. The reason for that is you have raw data in a format easy for you to verify and easy for any outsider (consultant, new employee, etc) to understand everything you have. I may make some of you cringe because I don’t normalize this; it’s small data and not worth the effort, especially with page compression (see Brad McGehee’s post on compression) turned on.

What I like doing is having automated reports with logic behind it saying “if drive size is X, file growth is Y, then you can grow to a potential size of Z”, follow that up with “the used space in this database has grown X in the last 90 days and Y in the last 30 days, so according to those trends I’ll hit the potential size in Z days”. One of my favorite reports takes that last Z as a parameter and tells me anything that will run out of space before a specific number of days. I get that report daily for anything that will run out of space in the next two weeks and a separate instance of that report monthly telling me what will run out of space in the next 100 days. For me to run out of space without having a couple automated emails sitting in my inbox yelling at me saying “See, I told you that would happen!!!”, a database has to do something crazy and out of character. The only part of that last sentence that doesn’t really happen is the automated email yelling, those voices don’t exist outside of my head (do they?).

Even without monitoring disk space, you can predict autogrowths. This is useful for trying preventing autogrowth all together if you’re into that, but with instant file initialization this has never been a spot I’ve chosen to spend my time on. However, I do care about fragmentation, and I have a report that will tell me if we continue growing according to our 30 or 90 day trends then the data files will have to grow X times. If X is higher than 4 and filegrowth is below 2 GB chunks, it shows up on my report and I change the filegrowth to make it more reasonable. If you allow percent filegrowths in your environment (just say no), or even if one sneaks through, things get complex and you have to stroll through financial websites to find the calculations for compounding interest to figure out how much the files will grow.

Cast(CEILING(LOG((Cast((ProjectedGrowthInAMonthMB - FileGroupFreeMB) as Dec(20,4)) + Cast(FileSizeMB as Dec(20,4)))/(Cast(FileSizeMB as Dec(20,4)))) /LOG(1+(Cast(Growth as Dec(20,4))/100))) AS Int)

Something inside that database is growing, but what is it?

Now if a database is growing, the first thing someone will ask you is “why is it growing”. That’s an answer I can’t give you, but “where is it growing” I can do. This is why I’m also tracking the table sizes in a database. Be fair to yourself here and admit it up front that you don’t care if a table changes size radically if the largest size is still insignificant to that database. So make up rules on “I want to watch tables that are bigger than…” and only store the stats for those tables to keep your little collections from being the source of your size issues. For me, that means that a table has to be both over 100MB in total size including indexes and over 0.5% of the size of the database. I’ve used these sizes for a while now and have never had an issue on either side; no one needed info I didn’t have for space trending issues and the collection time and space I used never caused any complaints. This isn’t saying that someone won’t ask “did that table have 10 or 11 records this time last month”, but I’m not willing to collect enough to answer every little question.

If a database is growing at an alarming rate it’s easy to assume the largest table is causing it. That’s not always the case, and it’s not too uncommon for a database change to either create a new table that grows quick intentionally or accidentally cause an old table to stop cleaning itself up. No matter what the reason is, if you want to see how a database is growing, look at your table stats documenting the growth. Developers always listen to you better when you tell them this is what happened and here’s how I know while the words “I think” are viewed as instant discredidation.

How am I supposed to do this stuff?

You’ll need somewhere to store all the info. I like to store two weeks of info on the local server and pull everything to a central server nightly where data is held for a full 13 months. However, to keep me under control, lets just focus on getting everything to the local server in the following tables.

CREATE TABLE [Drives](
    [DateAdded] [smalldatetime] NOT NULL,
    [DriveLetter] [char](1) NOT NULL,
    --[MountPoint] [smallint] NOT NULL,
    [CapacityMB] [int] NULL,
    [FreeSpaceMB] [int] NULL,
 CONSTRAINT [DBInven_Drives_DriveLetter_MountPoint_DateAdded] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
(
    [DateAdded] ASC,
    [DriveLetter] ASC,
    --[MountPoint] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX  = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE  = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS  = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS  = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]
GO

CREATE TABLE [Files](
    [DateAdded] [smalldatetime] NOT NULL,
    [DatabaseName] [sysname] NOT NULL,
    [FileName] [nvarchar](128) NOT NULL,
    [TypeDesc] [nvarchar](60) NULL,
    [FileGroup] [sysname] NULL,
    [SizeMB] [int] NULL,
    [UsedMB] [int] NULL,
    [FreeMB] [int] NULL,
    [MaxSizeMB] [int] NULL,
    [Growth] [int] NULL,
    [IsPercentGrowth] [bit] NOT NULL,
    [DriveLetter] [char](1) NOT NULL,
    --[MountPoint] [smallint] NOT NULL,
 CONSTRAINT [DBInven_Files_DatabaseID_FileID_DateAdded_U_C_IX] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
(
    [DateAdded] ASC,
    [DatabaseName] ASC,
    [FileName] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX  = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE  = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS  = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS  = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]
GO

CREATE TABLE [Tables](
    [DateAdded] [datetime] NOT NULL,
    [DatabaseName] [nvarchar](128) NOT NULL,
    [SchemaName] [nvarchar](128) NOT NULL,
    [TableName] [nvarchar](128) NOT NULL,
    [RowCounts] [bigint] NULL,
    [AllocatedMB] [int] NULL,
    [DataSizeMB] [int] NULL,
    [IndexSizeMB] [int] NULL,
    [PercentOfDB] [decimal](5, 2) NULL,
 CONSTRAINT [PK_Tables] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
(
    [DateAdded] ASC,
    [DatabaseName] ASC,
    [SchemaName] ASC,
    [TableName] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX  = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE  = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS  = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS  = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]
GO

If you use mountpoints, and if you call them “mountpoint” followed by an incrementing digit, and you never have more than can fit into a tinyint, uncommenting those pieces of the tables will do wonders for you. In case you didn’t guess, they’re commented out because the people who do use them probably don’t use them that way.

DECLARE @RunTime SmallDateTime
DECLARE @SQL NVarChar(max)

SET @RunTime = (SELECT Max(DateAdded) FROM Perf.DBInven.Drives)

SET @SQL = N'use [?]; 
    INSERT INTO Perf..Files 
    select ''' + cast(@RunTime as nvarchar(50)) + ''' 
        , DatabaseName = db_name()
        , FileName = f.Name
        , TypeDesc = f.Type_Desc
        , FileGroup = fg.Name
        , SizeMB = ((f.size*8/1024)) 
        , UsedMB = (FileProperty(f.name, ''SpaceUsed'')*8/1024) 
        , FreeMB = ((f.size-FileProperty(f.name, ''SpaceUsed''))*8/1024) 
        , MaxSizeMB = Case f.Max_Size
            WHEN -1 THEN -1
            ELSE f.Max_Size / 128
            END
        , f.Growth
        , f.Is_Percent_Growth
        , DriveLetter = left(f.physical_name,1) 
        /*, MountPoint = CASE substring(f.physical_name,4,10)
            WHEN ''MountPoint'' THEN 
                Case isnumeric(substring(f.physical_name,14,4)) --MountPoint >= 1000
                WHEN 1 THEN substring(f.physical_name,14,4)
                ELSE Case isnumeric(substring(f.physical_name,14,3)) --MountPoint >= 100
                    WHEN 1 THEN substring(f.physical_name,14,3)
                    ELSE Case isnumeric(substring(f.physical_name,14,2)) --MountPoint >= 10
                        WHEN 1 THEN substring(f.physical_name,14,2)
                        ELSE substring(f.physical_name,14,1) -- MountPoint single digit
                        END
                    END
                END
            ELSE Cast(0 as varchar(10)) --Root drive is MountPoint 0 
            END*/
    from sys.database_files f
        LEFT JOIN sys.filegroups fg ON f.data_space_id = fg.data_space_id
    '

exec sp_MSforeachdb @SQL

And now to grab the tables. Keep in mind that I specifically only want to grab stuff over 0.5% of the database size AND over 100 MB. You’ll see that towards the end of the code.

DECLARE @SQL NVarChar(max)
DECLARE @DateAdded SmallDateTime

SELECT @DateAdded = MAX(DateAdded) FROM Perf.DBInven.Drives 

SET @SQL = ' Use [?];
    DECLARE @DatabaseSize Float

    IF OBJECT_ID(''tempdb..#TableSizes'') IS NOT NULL BEGIN
          DROP TABLE #TableSizes
    END

    SELECT DatabaseName = DB_NAME()
    , TableName = a2.name
    , SchemaName = a3.name
    , RowCounts = a1.rows
    , TableSizeMB = (a1.reserved + ISNULL(a4.reserved,0)) / 128
    , DataSizeMB = a1.data / 128
    , IndexSizeMB = (CASE WHEN (a1.used + ISNULL(a4.used,0)) > a1.data 
                        THEN (a1.used + ISNULL(a4.used,0)) - a1.data 
                        ELSE 0 
                    END) /128
INTO #TableSizes
FROM (SELECT ps.object_id
            , [rows] = SUM(CASE
                                WHEN (ps.index_id < 2) THEN row_count
                                ELSE 0
                            END)
            , reserved = SUM(ps.reserved_page_count)
            , data = SUM(CASE
                            WHEN (ps.index_id < 2) 
                                THEN (ps.in_row_data_page_count + ps.lob_used_page_count + ps.row_overflow_used_page_count)
                            ELSE (ps.lob_used_page_count + ps.row_overflow_used_page_count)
                        END)
            , used = SUM (ps.used_page_count) 
        FROM sys.dm_db_partition_stats ps
        GROUP BY ps.object_id) AS a1
    INNER JOIN sys.all_objects a2  ON a1.object_id = a2.object_id
    INNER JOIN sys.schemas a3 ON a2.schema_id = a3.schema_id
    LEFT JOIN (SELECT it.parent_id
            , reserved = SUM(ps.reserved_page_count)
            , used = SUM(ps.used_page_count)
        FROM sys.dm_db_partition_stats ps
            INNER JOIN sys.internal_tables it ON it.object_id = ps.object_id
        WHERE it.internal_type IN (202,204)
        GROUP BY it.parent_id) AS a4 ON a4.parent_id = a1.object_id
WHERE a2.type <> ''S'' and a2.type <> ''IT''

    SELECT @DatabaseSize = Sum(TableSizeMB) FROM #TableSizes

    INSERT INTO Perf..[Tables]
    SELECT ''' + Cast(@DateAdded as VarChar(50)) + '''
        , DatabaseName
        , SchemaName
        , TableName
        , RowCounts
        , TableSizeMB
        , DataSizeMB
        , IndexSizeMB
        , (TableSizeMB/@DatabaseSize) * 100 
    FROM #TableSizes
    WHERE TableSizeMB > .005 * @DatabaseSize 
        AND TableSizeMB > 100

    DROP TABLE #TableSizes'

exec sp_MSforeachdb @SQL

So this leaves us with the size of the drives. This isn’t an easy subject. You can get everything you need through SQL Server if you don’t use mountpoints, but you’re left with either Powershell or VBScript to capture it with mountpoints so you can query WMI. Another post, another day. I’d actually prefer to rewrite my VBScript as PowerShell to both learn PowerShell and put a better solution out here for you.

This was my last post I needed to prep for my Monitoring and Baselines Presentation for SQL Saturday where I talk about what you want to watch and why. Since the presentation didn’t get into how to watch everything, I made sure that everything was on my blog ahead of time.

Related articles

• Table Sizes (simplesqlserver.com)
• File Sizes (simplesqlserver.com)
• Monitoring and Baselines Presentation for SQL Saturday (simplesqlserver.com)