I've got some archive databases on Azure PaaS SQL that aren't going to have much read or write activity. The issue is that they're currently set to 500GB but only using around 60GB of that space. I've heard that shrinking these databases might not be supported, so I'm looking for suggestions on how to reduce their size or reclaim that unused space.
2 Answers
Have you checked what licensing model you're using? That can impact some aspects. However, when it comes to storage costs, especially at the levels you mentioned, it typically doesn’t matter much. Plus, while the shrink operation could perform a bit faster with enhanced I/O based on licensing, that's not the main issue here.
You can actually shrink the databases, but it’s a really slow process and works only in a single thread. If you have the time, a good approach would be to export your data and then import it back into a new database. This way, you can reclaim the space more efficiently.
Thanks for pointing that out, but I thought licensing wouldn't affect how I manage the storage directly. Just trying to get a clearer picture!