What does the transaction log do?
A transaction log is used to record the fact that a transaction is set to occur as well as the information needed by the database server to recover the data back to a consistent state in event of a sever failure while it is writing information to disk.
What is a transaction log file?
A transaction log is a file – integral part of every SQL Server database. It contains log records produced during the logging process in a SQL Server database. The transaction log is the most important component of a SQL Server database when it comes to the disaster recovery – however, it must be uncorrupted.
What does it mean to truncate the transaction log?
SQL Server Transaction Log truncation is the process in which all VLFs that are marked as inactive will be deleted from the SQL Server Transaction Log file and become available for reuse. If there is a single active log record in a VLF, the overall VLF will be considered as active log and cannot be truncated.
How often do you backup your transaction logs?
For databases smaller than a few gigabytes in size, the answer is usually a full database backup daily, with transaction log backups at some point during the day. At a minimum, you should back up your databases weekly, with at least daily transaction log backups.
How do you clear the SQL Server transaction log?
Another option to shrink SQL transaction log file is to, backup the database log using the following command: BACKUP LOG nameDB TO BackupDevice. This is how one can get to know how to clear SQL Server Transaction Log file in order to free up the space in it for further storage of transactions.
Is it safe to delete SQL Server transaction log?
Yes, transaction logs allow you to do point in time recovery to a specific datetime or to a marked transaction. Assuming you’re doing full backups or differential backups at least every 3 days then your data is safe, but deleting the logs means you will lose the ability to recover to specific points in time between the log backup dates.