Question

I am having 2 .bak files for the same database in MSSQL Server. One is the test snapshot and the other is the production snapshot. The test one is about 500 MB and the production one is about 10 GB. This is because the Test one has many tables truncated. When I restore them in sql server a .mdf file is created at \Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data folder. But I see that the sze of the .mdf file is about 10 GB even when I restore only the test snapshot. Since the test snapshot has many tables truncated and data is less, I would assume that the the size of the .mdf file should be less than that for production snapshot. But that is not the case. Does sql server reserve space in the mdf file and hence it is the same size for both the versions?

Answer 1

Yes it does reserve space. You can see this in the create database page and later in the properties pages.