Hi Amy,
What DBMS are you using? Based off of that, how are you querying the DBMS to find the size?
We are using SQL Server. Our IT department sent me an excel spreadsheet with the file size of our feature classes for our instance. They also sent a graph from "solarwinds".
since in SQL, use MSSQL Server Management Studio...
use <your database>
select name, owner, version_id, state_id, parent_name, parent_owner from [<your database>].[dbo].[SDE_versions]
select * from [<your database>].[dbo].[SDE_versions]
select * from [<your database>].[dbo].[SDE_states] order by state_id
select * from [<your database>].[dbo].[sde_state_lineages] order by lineage_name, lineage_id
You may need to use a different name than DBO, depending on your setup. I've included the info if/when you do versioning, but you may not need those lines. I look at the number of rows that are listed in the lower right, and when it gets +150 or more (depending), and we're reconciled/posted our versions, I do the compress.
Good to look before the compress. the run it again afteer to see the recod count change.
These lines are informational only....nothing is changed in the database (compress does change things.)
All we did was copy the feature class into SDE. We have not edited it. It is only consumed by a web service. Would making a version of the entire database do this?
If ADE = SD...
If you are doing any edits, adds, deletes, etc. it may bee you add/delete (A/D) tables are getting large.You may need to compress your database to clear things up.
Compress—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop
If using MSSQL, I hae a nice little sql script that can help you track the number of records in these files. I do not know Oracle.
Sounds like Amy is not using Versioning here. One thing that could affect SQL Server on the size of the file is the recovery model being used and the indexes.