SQL SERVER – Unused Index Script – Download

Performance Tuning is quite interesting and Index plays a vital role in it. A proper index can improve the performance and a bad index can hamper the performance. Here is the script from my script bank, which I use to identify unused indexes on any database. Let us see script for unused index.

Please note, if you should not drop all the unused indexes this script suggest. This is just for guidance. You should not create more than 5-10 indexes per table. Additionally, this script sometime does not give accurate information so use your common sense.

Anyway, the scripts is a good starting point. You should pay attention to User Scan, User Lookup and User Update when you are going to drop the index. The generic understanding is if this value is all high and User Seek is low, the index needs tuning. The index drop script is also provided in the last column.

-- Unused Index Script
-- Original Author: Pinal Dave 
SELECT TOP 25
o.name AS ObjectName
, i.name AS IndexName
, i.index_id AS IndexID
, dm_ius.user_seeks AS UserSeek
, dm_ius.user_scans AS UserScans
, dm_ius.user_lookups AS UserLookups
, dm_ius.user_updates AS UserUpdates
, p.TableRows
, 'DROP INDEX ' + QUOTENAME(i.name)
+ ' ON ' + QUOTENAME(s.name) + '.' 
+ QUOTENAME(OBJECT_NAME(dm_ius.OBJECT_ID)) AS 'drop statement'
FROM sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats dm_ius
INNER JOIN sys.indexes i ON i.index_id = dm_ius.index_id 
AND dm_ius.OBJECT_ID = i.OBJECT_ID
INNER JOIN sys.objects o ON dm_ius.OBJECT_ID = o.OBJECT_ID
INNER JOIN sys.schemas s ON o.schema_id = s.schema_id
INNER JOIN (SELECT SUM(p.rows) TableRows, p.index_id, p.OBJECT_ID
FROM sys.partitions p GROUP BY p.index_id, p.OBJECT_ID) p
ON p.index_id = dm_ius.index_id AND dm_ius.OBJECT_ID = p.OBJECT_ID
WHERE OBJECTPROPERTY(dm_ius.OBJECT_ID,'IsUserTable') = 1
AND dm_ius.database_id = DB_ID()
AND i.type_desc = 'nonclustered'
AND i.is_primary_key = 0
AND i.is_unique_constraint = 0
ORDER BY (dm_ius.user_seeks + dm_ius.user_scans + dm_ius.user_lookups) ASC
GO

If you need further help with this script, do leave a comment or send me email at my email address.

Note: It goes without saying, please test all the script on your development server and after they pass your test, deploy them on production server.

Reference: Pinal Dave (https://blog.sqlauthority.com)