Brent Ozar shows a case where indexes can grow in size as you delete data:
Here’s one way that deletes can cause a table to grow:
– The rows were originally written when the database didn’t have Read Committed Snapshot (RCSI), Snapshot Isolation (SI), or Availability Groups (AGs) enabled
– RCSI or SI was enabled, or the database was added into an Availability Group
– During the deletions, a 14-byte timestamp was added to each deleted row to support RCSI/SI/AG reads
Click through for a demo and takeaways.