Sql-server – Backing up a really huge SQL Server database

I have my transaction log shipping every 2 days, plus daily backup of the db. My hard disk is 500 GB, but the database size is already reaching 490 GB. I'm afraid it'll run out of diskspace soon.

Taking transaction log backups, as are required for log shipping, internally clears portions of the transaction log, allowing the physical space on disk to be reused.

Assuming it's the size of the log file that's the problem, the frequency of the log backups should be increased. This will mean less physical disk space is required for ongoing operations; the physical file could then be shrunk to reclaim the unused space, probably so it can be used by data file growth.

If you still only want to do log restores on the secondary once every 2 days, that's fine -- the frequency of the backup/copy/restore jobs can be set independently.

Note that this only applies to log files.

If it's the data portion of the database that is growing and the amount of log being generated isn't necessarily increasing (and is a small part of the total space used), you will need to either (a) provision more storage, or (b) implement some kind of archiving/data deletion process, as there is no built-in mechanism that will clear out data.

For example, the .bak file reads 14GB but due to the transaction log the file is actually 60+GB.

Your problem is an inadequate maintenance and backup/recovery plan. You are not taking log backups with enough frequency, this is why your log grows through the roof. Start taking log backups to allow truncation and then shrink the log. You'll have a better recovery plan and a smaller database log file.

As for the question: no, there is no way to change the restored database file size(s). The restored database will always have the exact same layout as the original backed up database. Recovery mode has nothing to do with this, your restore would need 60GB on any recovery model. You're only mixing the recovery model in the discussion because you shrink the log by switching to SIMPLE. Read the linked article for more details on this aspect.