How to check the progress of the Shrink Database task in SQL Server

Wed, Feb 1, 2012 1-minute read

When compacting large databases in SQL Server, whether or not its done via the DBCC SHRINKDATABASE command or done via the SQL Server Management Studio, you will experience a very long delay in the command returning.

To check how the process is going, you cannot simply look at a progress bar or se a percentage some nice place.

But you can use the system views in SQL Server to see how its going.

Simply open up a new query window in your SQL Server Management Studio and issue the following SQL:

SELECT
	percent_complete, 
	start_time, 
	status, 
	command, 
	estimated_completion_time, 
	cpu_time, 
	total_elapsed_time
FROM 
	sys.dm_exec_requests
WHERE
	command = 'DbccFilesCompact'

That will give you a nice little table where you can see your compact task and how far it has gone in its progress.

But prepare to be disapointed - it is very slow to compact databases.