sql server text fields seem to be taking up a lot of space

I don't hav开发者_如何学Goe full-text indexing set up, but my text fields seem to be taking up a lot of space. It just doesn't 'feel' right.

Is it better to move text fields offline as files in the file system?

Unless your text fields are indexed, they've no reason to take up much more space than what they contain (i.e. byte length + some overhead, minus applicable compression applied by your database engine).