Zero Downtime Maintenance

SQLServerCentral Article

How to Safely Remove a SQL Server Data File Without Downtime

  • Article

Learn how to safely remove a SQL Server .ndf data file without any downtime using DBCC SHRINKFILE (EMPTYFILE). This hands-on tutorial walks through real-world Azure-based setup, data redistribution, and storage cleanup — ideal for DBAs managing enterprise SQL Server environments.

(3)

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2025-05-16

3,023 reads

Blogs

5 Starter Projects for Your AI and Data Engineering Portfolio

By

Reading tutorials is fine. Shipping something is better. If you are trying to break...

The Book of Redgate: Taking Breaks

By

We work hard at Redgate, though with a good work-life balance. One interesting observation...

Database AI Agents: The Read-Only Rule

By

Fourth in a series on Ai and databases. What Read-Only Advisory Actually Means A...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

Liability for AI Errors

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Liability for AI Errors

Running a Parameter-Sensitive Stored Procedure on a Secondary Replica

By abdalah.mehdoini

Hello , I would like to run a stored procedure on a secondary replica...

Pro SQL Server Internals

By Site Owners

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Pro SQL Server Internals

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

Running SQLCMD II

I run this command to start SQLCMD:

sqlcmd -S localhost -E -c "proceed"
At the prompt, I type this (the 1> and 2> are prompts):
1> select @@version
2> go
What happens?

See possible answers