I have a script I use to find table sizes in SQL server. Sometimes, though, I need to find the rough table size of a massive table without the need for absolute precision.
SQL server has a procedure for finding out the number of rows, space, and index size of a table; and it can run very quickly even for massive tables. It retrieves summary information, so it won’t give you a perfect and precise number.
Here is an example:
sp_spaceused MyMassiveTable
And the output is similar to the below made up result:
name rows reserved data index_size unused ------------------ -------------------- ------------------ ------------------ ------------------ ------------------ MyMassiveTable 113572103 477067904 KB 672320720 KB 5505568 KB 841616 KB
This mechanism will return a result in under one second, whereas a “proper” COUNT
could take much longer.