Finding out the paths to SQL Database Data Files
Finding out the data and log file locations in SQL Server can sometimes be a little fiddly. With that in mind, I’ve been looking for a way to list the files used by each database. Whether for system or disaster recovery documentation, it can sometimes be handy to have this kind of info available to you.
Finding out where the mdf (database file) is can be pretty easy. Its held in the Master database somewhere. Its only when you want to check where both the mdf and ldf (transaction log file) are stored that it can get a bit tricky.
The way I’ve been doing it involves a cursor that creates a new line in a temporary database for each database you have on that particular server. Ordinarily to get where the database and log files are kept you’d use a query like the one below:
EXEC sp_helpdb ‘master’
What I’ll be doing is something that works similar to this but basically does it for all the databases in one command.
Get the name of the first database
Query the database for its file locations, writing them to the temporary database
Get the name of the second database…..
Etc
So, here goes with the actual code:
I don’t have any databases that use more than the primary filegroup so I’m afraid this won’t help users that may be doing that.
For us simple people however, this will give you a report that can be used in disaster recovery docs and the like for years to come. 🙂
