spspaceused

sp_spaceused is a system stored procedure in Microsoft SQL Server and Azure SQL Database that reports space usage for a database or a specific table. It is commonly used for capacity planning, auditing storage growth, and quick spot checks of how space is allocated.

When executed without parameters, sp_spaceused returns database-level information, including the database_name, database_size, and unallocated_space. The values are presented in megabytes. When a table name is supplied via the @objname parameter, the procedure returns table-level statistics such as name, rows, reserved, data, index_size, and unused. The numeric columns for the table view are typically in kilobytes, reflecting the space reserved and used by the table.

The @updateusage parameter controls whether the procedure recalculates space usage before returning results. Setting @updateusage = 'true' forces an up-to-date scan, which can be I/O intensive and may take longer on large databases or tables. The default is usually 'false', meaning the results reflect existing statistics.

Examples:

- EXEC sp_spaceused;

- EXEC sp_spaceused @objname = 'dbo.Orders';

- EXEC sp_spaceused @updateusage = 'true';

Notes and caveats:

sp_spaceused is a legacy-style utility useful for quick assessments but may not reflect real-time fragmentation or per-partition details. For deeper analysis, consider catalog views and dynamic management views such as sys.dm_db_partition_stats, sys.dm_db_file_space_usage, or other storage-related tools. It remains a commonly referenced starting point for storage questions in SQL Server environments.