Can i delete transaction log

This has the same effect. This is not recomended in production environments obviously, since you will not be able to restore to a point in time. This technique that John recommends is not recommended as there is no guarantee that the database will attach without the log file.

Change the database from full to simple, force a checkpoint and wait a few minutes. The SQL Server transaction log needs to be properly maintained in order to prevent its unwanted growth.

This means running transaction log backups often enough. By not doing that, you risk the transaction log to become full and start to grow. Besides the answers for this question I recommend reading and understanding the transaction log common myths.

These readings may help understanding the transaction log and deciding what techniques to use to "clear" it:. From 10 most important SQL Server transaction log myths :. One of the biggest performance intensive operations in SQL Server is an auto-grow event of the online transaction log file.

By not making transaction log backups often enough, the online transaction log will become full and will have to grow. It can block all activity in the online transaction log. From Transaction log myths :. Log growth is very expensive because the new chunk must be zeroed-out. All write activity stops on that database until zeroing is finished, and if your disk write is slow or autogrowth size is big, that pause can be huge and users will notice.

If you shrink the log, it will grow again and you are just wasting disk operation on needless shrink-and-grow-again game. Most answers here so far are assuming you do not actually need the Transaction Log file, however if your database is using the FULL recovery model, and you want to keep your backups in case you need to restore the database, then do not truncate or delete the log file the way many of these answers suggest.

Eliminating the log file through truncating it, discarding it, erasing it, etc will break your backup chain, and will prevent you from restoring to any point in time since your last full, differential, or transaction log backup, until the next full or differential backup is made. Until the next full or differential database backup, the database is not protected from media failure.

Use manual log truncation in only very special circumstances, and create backups of the data immediately. To avoid that, backup your log file to disk before shrinking it.

The syntax would look something like this:. To my experience on most SQL Servers there is no backup of the transaction log. Full backups or differential backups are common practice, but transaction log backups are really seldom. So the transaction log file grows forever until the disk is full. In this case the recovery model should be set to " simple ". Don't forget to modify the system databases "model" and "tempdb", too.

A backup of the database "tempdb" makes no sense, so the recovery model of this db should always be "simple". First check the database recovery model. Recover from a full transaction log in a SQL Server database. Depending upon your recovery model you may not be able to shrink the log - if in FULL and you aren't issuing TX log backups the log can't be shrunk - it will grow forever. If you don't need TX log backups, switch your recovery model to Simple. And remember, never ever under any circumstances delete the log LDF file!

You will pretty much have instant database corruption. Lost data! If left "unrepaired" the main MDF file could become corrupt permanently. Never ever delete the transaction log - you will lose data!

Part of your data is in the TX Log regardless of recovery model For those that have deleted the TX Log you may want to run a few checkdb commands and fix the corruption before you lose more data.

Check out Paul Randal's blog posts on this very topic, bad advice. Also in general do not use shrinkfile on the MDF files as it can severely fragment your data. Check out his Bad Advice section for more info "Why you should not shrink your data files".

Check out Paul's website - he covers these very questions. Last month he walked through many of these issues in his Myth A Day series. What can you do to reduce this? Actually, log files are those file data which the SQL server keeps when an transaction has taken place. For a transaction to process SQL server allocates pages for the same.

But after the completion of the transaction, these are not released suddenly hoping that there may be a transaction coming like the same one. This holds up the space. Some of the other answers did not work for me: It was not possible to create the checkpoint while the db was online, because the transaction log was full how ironic. However, after setting the database to emergency mode, I was able to shrink the log file:. I had a recent db backup, so I backed up the transaction log.

Then I backed it up again for good measure. Finally I shrank the log file, and went from 20G to 7MB, much more in line with the size of my data. I don't think the transaction logs had ever been backed up since this was installed 2 years ago..

Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Collectives on Stack Overflow. Learn more. How do you clear the SQL Server transaction log? Ask Question. Please read through this sqlservercentral. GilaMonster "What do I need the log file for after that? Instead of worrying about how to get rid of the log, maybe consider learning how to manage the log properly?

The app may be single user on your PC right now, but surely it's intended for wider release to users, and once that happens it's no longer a 'highly controlled environment' and the database's log will need to be properly managed. Cool, then here's something that one can't do - safely delete the transaction log without potential consequences.

It's not 'overly scientific fluff, it's the integrity of your database. Detach and delete will be fine most of the time, except when it isn't.

You asked for experienced DBAs to tell you how to deal with it. Lots of very experienced DBAs have told you that it's not safe to delete the log and have offered alternative suggestions. Show 1 more comment. That is why you need the log file. For the needs of your application maybe all you need is a flat file storage mechanism. StanleyJohns StanleyJohns 5, 2 2 gold badges 19 19 silver badges 44 44 bronze badges.

Surely you can delete your LDF file. You even may to choose to delete the sql server! The only question - why do you need to do this? Oleg Dok Oleg Dok 3, 21 21 silver badges 28 28 bronze badges. James Jenkins James Jenkins 5, 5 5 gold badges 34 34 silver badges 75 75 bronze badges. Sign up or log in Sign up using Google. Sign up using Facebook. Sign up using Email and Password. Post as a guest Name. Email Required, but never shown. Bulk-logged Recovery Model No automatic log truncation, backups are needed regularly to mark unused space and make it available for overwriting.

Log size can be reduced by using minimal logging for bulk operations. There is a high chance of growing log file since every transaction that takes place on the database,is logged into it. Log truncation frees space in the log file for reuse. Therefore, it is also called Log clearing. Each VLF file is the unit that can be marked as available for reuse free or not available for reuse used. Sometimes we can create a second log file on another disk as a workaround because the log file is full.

When we have free space on the disk where the first log file is located, or when we move this first log file to another disk with sufficient space, we can delete these temporary secondary log files. So, your transaction log file automatically truncated after log backup and this prevents your transaction log to growing too much. You may want to read the following articles to learn detailed information about recovery models and transaction log.