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you can reduce the size of the database by using DBCC SHRINKDB('DBNAME') WITH TRUNCATEONLY Command, This will shrink the database and return the unused space to OS. You can also enable autoshrink option in the database. But this is not a recommended practice. Before doing DB Shrink check how much space it is unused by sp_spaceused also make sure that you already reserved the space for the future database growth. (This information is obtained from the capacity planning) ShrinkDB and AutoGrowth (unless instant file internalization is enabled for SQL account) is highly resource consumption process especially CPU. This should not be done as a day today maintenance activity. This is recommended only after huge delete or after dropping huge tables. Usually this space is reused in the database. Also after shrinking the database your indexes may get fragmented. Please Refer [Microsoft][1], [KB Article][3] [1]: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190488.aspx [2]: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190488.aspx [3]: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315512 [4]: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190488.aspx

What is the purpose of shrinking the database..? do your log file is growing abnormally or have you assined more space to datafile accidentally....if log is growing better to add t-log backups to the db or shrink only the log file it will shrink only log file do not touch datafile.. Shrinking of log file is tolarable but shrinking of datafile is not a acceptable method, it will increses fragmentation in file.. you can shrink the file using below command.. DBCC shrinkfile('filename','size in MB')

Unless you have just deleted a great deal of data shrinking the database might not be a good idea. @Manikreddy is correct that shrinking the data file will fragment the database. Might you really just be needing to shrink your log file? If you aren't taking regular backups of your transaction logs they will grow very large.