DBCC CHECKDB on Large Databases

Aaron Bertrand shares some thoughts on CHECKDB:

We have a lot of data. Some of that data is stored in large databases (dozens of terabytes each). In some shops, this is an excuse to not run integrity checks. We are not one of those shops.

But we don’t run full CHECKDB operations in production; we have a set of servers dedicated to testing our restores and running checks. We follow a lot of the guidance in these articles:

– CHECKDB From Every Angle: Consistency Checking Options for a VLDB

– Minimizing the impact of DBCC CHECKDB : DOs and DON’Ts

– Minimize performance impact of SQL Server DBCC CHECKDB

Read the whole thing, even if you aren’t dealing with 30+ TB databases.