Don’t Set Max Size For Containers In In-Memory OLTP

Ned Otter recommends you not mess with the maximum container size when creating a memory-optimized filegroup:

I recently saw a thread on twitter, where the OP talked about setting the max size for an In-Memory OLTP container. I responded as I always do: it’s not possible to set a limit on anything having to do with storage for In-Memory OLTP.

Unfortunately, that’s not correct: through SSMS or TSQL, you can in fact set a max size for a container.

But you should not ever do that…..

Why?

Because if you do, and your checkpoint files exceed the max size of the container, your database can go into the In Recovery, Suspect, or OFFLINE state.

Read on for a repro that you should not try in production.  Or anywhere, really.