topic Re: Deleted raster does not release disk space in Data Management Questions

Deleted raster does not release disk space

GerickeCook — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 20:11:32 GMT

I had several large ESRI grid files that I deleted from a folder using ArcCatalog (10.0). It should have released about 70 GB of harddrive space but I saw no change when looking at the disk space properties. I see a couple of related posts like these:
post 1 and post 2

I don't administer SDE databases or use SQL server manager, so I'm unfamiliar with one suggestion posted. As an ArcGIS end user, how can I delete a raster and get my harddrive space back?

Re: Deleted raster does not release disk space

xiannianchen — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 02:12:22 GMT

From operation system perspective, your deleted files should be still in the Recycle Bin. The regular DELETE will not permanently delete files but move the files to the Recycle Bin.

Re: Deleted raster does not release disk space

GerickeCook — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 19:03:18 GMT

From operation system perspective, your deleted files should be still in the Recycle Bin. The regular DELETE will not permanently delete files but move the files to the Recycle Bin.

That would be an easy fix if true, but it doesn't work either, unfortunately. I've emptied the recycling bin, run disk cleanup, and disk defragmenter. I've rebooted the machine and anything else I can think of that normally fixes glitchy stuff like this.

I am currently running Windows 7 64-bit, ArcGIS 10.0. I don't want to upgrade to 10.1 yet, because I'm using some code developed for 10.0 for a project. Anyone else have an idea why this is happening?

Re: Deleted raster does not release disk space

RebekahZehnder — Tue, 24 Sep 2013 18:12:56 GMT

Did you ever figure this out? I'm experiencing the same issue - deleted rasters in ArcCatalog, but no disk space was released and they did not show up in the Recycle Bin.

Windows 7 Ultimate, ArcGIS 10.1

Re: Deleted raster does not release disk space

Anonymous User — Thu, 01 Feb 2018 01:49:00 GMT

Sorry to revive this old post. But I am having the same problem here with ArcMap / ArcCatalog 10.3.1. The raster was stored in SDE Geodatabase (SQL Server) previously, and I deleted it from ArcCatalog. It should have released around 50 GB HDD space. The server does not have Recycle bin activated, it is on Windows Server 2012 R2. And I see the .mdf file itself still have that 50GB data (originally it was only around 2GB ). So I assume it was not moved to anywhere (to recycle bin or somewhere).

Please help for solution for this.

Re: Deleted raster does not release disk space

Asrujit_SenGupta — Thu, 01 Feb 2018 04:01:15 GMT

Did you try to Shrink the Database or the Data\Log files individually? Does that release the space?

Shrink a Database | Microsoft Docs

Shrink a File | Microsoft Docs

Re: Deleted raster does not release disk space

Anonymous User — Thu, 01 Feb 2018 04:15:09 GMT

Hi Asrujit, you are a legend. It works. If you live near my place, I will treat you as many pizza as you want.

Re: Deleted raster does not release disk space

Asrujit_SenGupta — Thu, 01 Feb 2018 04:43:17 GMT

Great! As many Pizzas as you want...interesting...