I have a question about altering tables and growth of the database and
transaction log. I have a database which is approximately 35GB. I
had to make a change to a column in the largest table (approximately 7
million rows). I changed this column from varchar(30) to varchar(40).
This column is not in any indexes or involved with any triggers. My
database grew from 35GB to 56GB and my transaction log grew from 9GB
to 25GB. Now all the growth was pure air because I could shrink the
database down right back where it started once the alter completed. I
need to alter 5 more columns in this database table. Are there any
tricks where I can limit the growth of the database? Would it be
faster to pre-expand the database to say 60 or 70GB before doing the
alter?
Thanks in advance,
Dave Serrano.
