What to do with a Large SharePoint Content Database

hmmm... Wondering  what to do with  the content database size that has already exceeded supported size limit (200 GB) and you want to create a new site collection. There are multiple choices available, you can give it a shot:-

Choice#1 :

• Deleting unnecessary sites and old document versions using SharePoint Object Model.
• For deleting old versions of SharePoint file, custom coding might be necessary as SharePoint do not provide this utility OOTB. Fortunately, there are some solutions out therehttp://www.sharepointfix.com/2009/10/delete-older-versions-new-sharepoint.html
  http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/31481306/programmatically-delete-file-versions-across-a-site-collection.aspx

Choice#2

• Shrinking the data base in SQL server, it may have a lot of unoccupied space.

DBCC SHRINKFILE (, )

Or

DBCC SHRINKDATABASE

Run sp_filestream_force_garbage_collection (Transact-SQL) to force the garbage collector to delete any files that are no longer needed in File streaming container.

Choice#3

Move existing site collection to other database and this will reduce size.

Run below command to get the site info along with content database sizes :-

stsadm -o enumsites -url http://sitecollectionURL >> d:\siteinfo.xml

Or

To create the list of all site collection in that Content database then use this,

Get-SPSite -ContentDatabase "WSS_Content_"| foreach($site in $_.sites)

Now from the Site info file created in d drive you can identify the site collection that you

want to move to a separate database.

Move-SPSite <http://ServerName/Sites/SiteName> -DestinationDatabase

• <http://ServerName/Sites/SiteName> is the name of the site collection.

• is the name of the destination content database.

Stsadm -o mergecontentdbs -url -sourcedatabasename -destinationdatabasename -operation 3 -filename

Choice#4  Keep the old large databases as it is and create new site collections in a separate database:-

stsadm -o createsiteinnewdb -url  http://sitecollectionURL 

                                          -ownerlogin domain\username 

                                          -owneremail emailid     

                                          -lcid 1033 

                                          -sitetemplate STS#0  

                                          -title sitecollectiontitle 

                                          -description sitecollectiondescription

                                          -databasename DBname

Note: We cannot split a site collection  into  multiple databases.

Powershell script to Install SharePoint 2013

Ohhhhh Yessssss! I am back ....don't ask me after how long I am active on this SharePoint blog (sigh :(  its been almost 3 yrs... )....and the reason for this about - turn is my new year resolution (a deep secret, wouldn't tell you now ;) )... Yes , I am happy that I have straightened my back to continue with my skills and to catch up with the world. So here is my Powershell script that I used to successfully install SharePoint 2013 in POC environment:-

This script can be safely used to create a brand new SharePoint farm:-

PS C:\Users\ Spadmin > Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell -EA 0 

# Settings

PS C:\Users\ Spadmin  >$databaseServer = " "

PS C:\Users\ Spadmin  >$configDatabase = " "

PS C:\Users\ Spadmin >$adminContentDB = ""

PS C:\Users\ Spadmin  >$passphrase = " "

PS C:\Users\ Spadmin  >$farmAccountName = " "

PS C:\Users\ Spadmin >$farmAccount = Get-Credential $ S_SP2013_Dev_FARM

PS C:\Users\ Spadmin  >$passphrase = (ConvertTo-SecureString $passphrase -AsPlainText -force)

PS C:\Users\Spadmin > New-SPConfigurationDatabase -DatabaseServer $databaseServer -DatabaseName $configDatabase -AdministrationContentDatabaseName $adminContentDB  -Passphrase $passphrase -FarmCredentials $farmAccount

Please run the below command in SQL management studio to set the MAXDOP to 1 for parallel queries before creating a SharePoint farm:-

EXEC sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1;

RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE;

GO

EXEC sp_configure 'max degree of parallelism', 1;

RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE;

GO

EXEC sp_configure;

GO

So, Apply the above recipe to create your very own SharePoint farm, and do let me know if this post was helpful.

Signing off..

Take care!!!!!!!!