title: Limit SQL Server log file growth rate
body: <p>I have a big database of 2.3 billion rows and size of 76gb.</p>
  
  <p>My problem is that I want to convert a column type to <code>smalldatetime</code> but during this operation the .ldf file grows so big that it takes my entire disk space (it got up to 350gb) and then query exits with error.</p>
  
  <p>Is there any way to keep the .ldf small?</p>
  
  <p>I shrinked my .ldf from options.</p>
  
  <p>Database recovery model is set to simple.</p>