Our SQL Server (version 2012) is housed on a cloud server, for which we pay whenever we need additional space. We determined that we could delete some of the data to prevent the need for continually buying more storage.
The delete queries did not appear to open space - the size of the drive and available space doesn't change.
It is my understanding that even though available space has not changed, available space is created by the delete query. So new records imported can populate places where data was deleted. Is this correct?
I understand the Shrink Database is not a good choice.
Should I run - sp_clean_db_file_free_space based on the following advice?