I set up snapshot replication for a DB between two SQL instances. On the source instance, the DB shows as 106612.56MB with 34663.75MB as available free space. I expected that the replica would then end up being 71948.81MB (106612.56 - 34663.75 because it wouldn't replicate the white space). The resultant replica database is showing as 35522.94MB. The required data appears to be present in the replicated DB as the SSRS reports that use it are able to find the data they look for. But why the large discrepancy in size between the source and replicated DB? The replicated DB is less than 1/2 the size of the source DB. I've searched around and can't seem to find any explanation. I realize this isn't mirroring so the DBs will not be identical in size but I did not expect to see such a large difference between the two. I am replicating all almost all articles (tables, stored procs, etc.) with the exception of a handful of stored procedures and user-defined functions that either reference invalid column names in a table (vendor bug) or reference another DB that is not present on the replica's instance. I would expect these 4-5 articles can not account for a 37000 MB size difference between the two DBs.
Please note that this has nothing to do with transaction log size. I am specifically talking about the database size and am not looking at the size that combines both DB and TxLog size.
Any insight?