CREATE DATABASE or ALTER DATABASE failed because the resulting cumulative database size would exceed your licensed limit of 10240 MB per database

Question

I have SQL Server not Express and when db grows to 10240 I get error:

Could not allocate space for object in database because the 'PRIMARY' filegroup is full. Create disk space by deleting unneeded files, dropping objects in the filegroup, adding additional files to the filegroup, or setting autogrowth on for existing files in the filegroup.

I tried to change Initial size from 10240 to more but then got error:

CREATE DATABASE or ALTER DATABASE failed because the resulting cumulative database size would exceed your licensed limit of 10240 MB per database. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 1827)

But this is really not Express but full SQL Server, so how it is possible that it has this limitation?

Answer 1

I had the same error in my Express Edition as the official documentatios says, to fix it without shrink the DB I upgraded my version, from Express to Developer edition. Go to SQL Server Installation Center->Maintenance->Edition upgrade.

Answer 2

The instance name for SQL Server Express is by default SQLEXPRESS - but it can be anything you choose during installation. If you install SQL Server Express as the default (un-named) instance, then you get MSSQLSERVER as the pseudo instance name for SQL Server Express.

Hence, you really cannot rely on the instance name to judge whether your SQL Server is the Express edition or not. You need to use

SELECT @@Version

to get that information.