In my current role at Pure Storage, I have the privilege of working with two amazingly smart, awesome SQL Server nerds; Andrew Pruski (b) and Anthony Nocentino (b). We often find ourselves facing interesting questions about SQL Server and storage, and today was no exception.
Andrew had a customer who wanted to know what happens on our FlashArray, from a space usage perspective, when they first delete a large volume of data in a database’s data file, then subsequently shrink the database’s data file.
Read on for that answer. This answer also applies to other storage solutions as well.