How fast is my SQL Server database growing?

Do you know how quickly your database is growing?  If not you can get a pretty good idea based on how the size of your full backups have grown over time. 

Run the script below, and then run the output of that script and you will see the growth of your backup day by day.  Putting the output into Excel can help to generate a graph for this.  Overall it’s a quick and dirty way to get some idea of how quick you’re growing.

use master

go

DECLARE @dbname as sysname

DECLARE @select_string as varchar(4000)

DECLARE @for_string as varchar(4000)

DECLARE @init as bit

DECLARE curs CURSOR FOR

SELECT name FROM sysdatabases

OPEN CURS

FETCH NEXT FROM curs INTO @dbname

SELECT      @select_string = 'SELECT DISTINCT backup_date',

      @for_string = 'FOR database_name IN (',

      @init = 0

WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0

BEGIN

      IF @init = 0

      BEGIN

            SET @init = 1

            SELECT      @select_string = @select_string + ', [' + @dbname + '] as ' + '"' + @dbname +'"',

            @for_string = @for_string +  @dbname

      END

      ELSE

      BEGIN

            SELECT      @select_string = @select_string + ', [' + @dbname + '] as ' + '"' + @dbname +'"',

                  @for_string = @for_string + ', ' + @dbname

      END

      FETCH NEXT FROM curs INTO @dbname

END

CLOSE curs

DEALLOCATE curs

PRINT @select_string

PRINT 'from

      (select isnull(backup_size / (1024 * 1024 * 1024), 0) as backup_size,

      database_name,

      cast(cast(backup_finish_date as varchar(12)) as datetime) as backup_date

      from msdb.dbo.backupset

      where type = ''d'') p

pivot

      (

      sum(backup_size)'

PRINT @for_string

PRINT ')) as pvt 

order by backup_date'