Time To Rethink Autoshrink

SQL Server has had the autoshrink capability since version 7.0, and DBA's have been using it ever since to automatically maintain data file size and transaction log file size. Under certain circumstances this works well, especially for the many organizations who don't have a DBA available to shrink these files manually when necessary. However, there can be serious performance and disk space issues when the database engine controls the shrinking and subsequent growing of the files when more space is needed for the data.

Microsoft SQL Server MVP Tibor Karaszi wrote an excellent article explaining the autoshrink problem and provides test evidence to help convince SQL Server DBA's who may have already decided to turn on the autoshrink database option, because it's a "no-brainer."