I'm having the same issue. I had a raster catalog which I deleted. I have used a script to populate a "Raster" column to an external source of tifs. My file geodatabase was 27.5 G before I compacted it and its still 21.16. This is way too large. What other options do I have? Is it because I mapped a path to a raster for 6,000 features? Though that doesn't seem logical as the rasters are external to the database. Any help would appreciated before I have to can all this work. When you create the raster catalog, you can choose from managed or unmanaged option. The unmanaged option would onle contain the link to the raster data instead of saving the data within the geodatabase. I reckon in this manner your database should not be as large as 20 or so G.
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