We are doing a migration from SP 2010 to 2013. We are going site by site (moving content databases to a new server). Some of the content databases are over 200GB, from what I can see mainly due to document versioning.
The theory is that by going to RBS, we will gain "white space" in the content databases, and I will shrink them so that we will get a 1-to-1 exchange in disk space.
I'm a SQL Server DBA, this seems like "crazy talk" to me. ;)
Shrinking any database (especially one over 200GB!) is in general a risky endeavor, and may or may not even happen - SQL is just not fond of performing this action.
How will this transformation even work? I can understand replacing non-structured data (BLOBS) with an external link, but with multiple versions of, say, word documents currently existing in the database, how long is that going to take? Is it going to clean up after itself when it is done?
I've read several white papers, but unfortunately different people on my team are each interpreting them in different ways.
If anyone can answer these questions, thanks in advance. Any links to blogs or white papers are also appreciated.
FYI: SQL Server 2012 Windows 2012 R2 Sharepoint 2013 (upgrade from 2010)