We have a DB that's about 1.5 Gigs in size. When we do a full backup the backup file is about the same size, 1.5 Gigs. It's been like this for a while. Recently, the backup file size has jumped to 2.6 Gigs while the data file is still around 1.5 Gigs.

Anyone know what can cause the backup file to almost double in size from one week to the next when the data file itself has remained practically the same size? We're on SQLServer 2000.

Are you backing up transaction logs? Perhaps increased activity could account for the extra space ...

Ok, I found out what the problem was. The backups were suppose to overwrite the media but were appending instead.

However, I see that the live .LDF transaction log file has not been written to in about 21 days. Is this normal if I'm doing hourly transaction log backups?