I see this topic come up over and over again on the web. Somebody’s transaction logs run wild and they start searching for how to disable the transaction log so they can maximize disk space. I suspect that the people searching for this are probably developers or sys admins that got stuck babysitting a SQL Server and might not have had a chance to get familiar with SQL. [Read more…] about How to Disable Transaction Logs in SQL Server
Technology
Quickly Get SQL Server Version, Edition and Update Level
This query works on SQL Server 2000 and above:
USE [master]
SELECT
CAST(SERVERPROPERTY('productversion') AS VARCHAR) + ' - '
+ CAST(SERVERPROPERTY('productlevel') AS VARCHAR) + ' ('
+ CAST(SERVERPROPERTY('edition') AS VARCHAR) + ')'
SQL Server GO Keyword
You see the word GO in a lot of T-SQL scripts but do you actually know what it is or how to use it?
GO is actually not a part of T-SQL and is never passed to SQL Server. It is used by clients such as osql, sqlcmd, SSMS and Query Analyzer to control how commands are batched and sent to the server.
Adding LUNs to a SQL Server Cluster
When you add a new LUN to a SQL Server cluster, you start by adding it as a partition under Windows Disk Management. However, SQL Server will not recognize the partition at this point. You must also add the disk resource to the dependency list for the SQL Server resource in the cluster.
The Difference Between the DATETIME and SMALLDATETIME Data Types
DATETIME requires 8 bytes of storage and stores dates from 1/1/1753 to 12/31/9999. It is accurate to about 3 milliseconds.
SMALLDATETIME requires only 4 bytes of storage. It can stores dates from 1/1/1900 to 6/6/2079 and is accurate to 1 minute.
If you’re not in the mood to wade through BOL, you can find a quick overview with a fair amount of detail on SQL Server datatypes here.
Reinstalling SQL Server 2005
The other day I had to uninstall SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition from a machine and reinstall it.
We had previously done an in-place upgrade from 2000 and I was never 100% convinced the instance was sound. The server is our SSIS and SSRS server. It was originally supposed to be a DEV box. But it has become more of a PROD ETL and reporting box. The only user-facing application being hosted is SSRS. [Read more…] about Reinstalling SQL Server 2005