Dealing with Backup that is taking days to complete

  • Hi

    We have a backup job that is running on a stats database that is taking over 2 days to complete. The problem is is that the transaction log eventually gets to capacity  and we have to kill the backup. The recovery mode at the moment is simple. I have heard that if I put it into full I will be able to truncate the log during the backup and so not have to worry about the log getting full. This is supposedly possible in 2005 but wasnt in 2000.

    So thats one thing I can try.

    The other is doing filegroup backups instead full backups

    Has anyone had to deal with this kind of problem in 2005 and if so how did you resolve it

    thanks

  • Yes, very definitely, change the recovery model to Full. This not only helps you in regard to automatically truncating the log file, it also allows you to perform transaction log backups throughout the day. Once the log is truncated, you may need to manually shrink it in order to recovery space.

    Also, if you have problems with long running backups, consider a third-party backup program that can compress the backups, saving a great amount of backup time.

     

    Brad

    Microsoft SQL Server MVP

    Brad M. McGehee
    DBA

  • Hi

    I just tried to run Backup Log DBNAME with truncate_only and DBCC shrinkfile on a test database in FULL recovery mode while a full backup is running but it wouldnt let me. So am I right to think that having th DB in FULL recovery mode wont help me to overcome the problem because the transaction log is just going to increase and I cant truncate it and shrink it during the backup.

    Are filegroup backups the only solution for this?

  • You can't run two backups at the same time. This is what is causing your current issue.

     

    Brad

    Brad M. McGehee
    DBA

  • You can backup the log to a file while a full backup is running but you cant run a truncate or shrink.

    Backing up the log to a file doesnt shrink the physical size of the ldf file so this new feature doesnt help me.

    So it looks like filegroup backups. The problem is I have to get a full backup done first. Bad place to be. I hope I dont have to resort to prayer.

    thanks for responding

  • How big is your database?

  • Over 2 terabytes

  • Are you backing up to a local disk or across your network to a network share?

  • To a network share using redgate sql backup

  • That may be part of the problem.  Do you have the space available on your server to backup directly yo disk and then move the backup file?

  • You problem sounds like a hardware bottleneck, like not enough bandwidth on your network connection, poor performing disk drives on your target or source server, or not enough memory or CPU capacity.

    If that is the case, you will likely need a hardware upgrade.

     

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