Sitecore Database and App_Data Size

Question

We have 5 relatively small sites running on top of Sitecore. The oldest was placed in the environment for 3 years. Currently, both the main database and the web database are approximately 8 GB - an amazing size, but also that they are almost identical in size (I would expect the web database to be much smaller). It is also surprising that App_Data is larger than 50 GB (MediaCache 15 GB and MediaFiles 37 GB). Any ideas or suggestions on ways to reduce files on disk - even temporarily?

Answer 1

Media Files - media items stored on disk (keep this folder) Media Cache - is where sitecore caches image versions (eg rezised images) 

You can delete the entire contents of the Media Cache folder. Sitecore will gradually recreate the image cache of images that are used on sites.

If you use version control of elements, you can use Version Manager and archive old versions. However, as you have a nearly identical size Master and Web database, I don’t think it will help you. The web database contains only one version of each item.

The last thing you would need to scan through the media library is to find items that have no links in LinkDatabase and delete them. First make sure you return everything.

http://trac.sitecore.net/VersionManager

Answer 2

If you save media resources in a database, I assume that you are based on sizes, I believe that you can delete the App_Data folder, and if necessary, they will add files there as needed. If you save media assets in the file system, they are stored in App_Data, which explain the large size. Is it possible that you store some assets in the database and others in the file system? In any case, you should analyze what types of files are in App_Data and compare it with a ready-made instance of Sitecore to find out what the contents of the site or the files of the generated caches are.

Answer 3

You can also try to compress databases

 DBCC UPDATEUSAGE (web) DBCC SHRINKDATABASE(web, 0);