Backup Device - Delete after x days ?

  • A friend at another company asked me to take a look at their backup routine. I'd like to prepare by better understanding how "Backup Devices" are used, in case they use them.

    I'm most familiar with Redgate, Idera and native SQL backup maint plans that write individual files to disk (DB_Full_date.bak, DB_TLog_Date.trn ...) and allow you to delete old backups (.bak & .trn) files on disk older than x days.

    In playing with a backup device just now, I'm not clear if the same option is available. I did some backups to a device. I see the Append & Overwrite option. Can older contents be deleted from the backup device (eg older than 3 weeks) and still retain the newer contents of the device (< 3 weeks) ?

    TIA

  • afaik you cannot delete a part of a backup file.

    A backup device is just a pointer to an actual file.

    If you use backup with init, that file wil be overwritten, if you use with noinit, the backup command will add the new backup to the file (if it exists).

    We use backup devices with the backup statements.

    The actual backup files are on local drives.

    After a backup has been created, we copy it to a safe zone and a file backup tool (veritas netbackup) copies that to tapes.

    Our sequence is this:

    1) full backup (every x days) (which also creates a log backup (noinit) for each database)

    2) Logbackup with init ( once after the full backup, to "restart" the log bak files)

    3) incremental log backups (using with noinit) every x minutes or hours.

    The full backup job disables the incremental log backups, to be sure the don't collide.

    It also alters and enables the schedule for the log-init job

    The last step of the log-init job enables the incremental log backup jobs.

    Each backup job copies to its own safe zone location.

    Johan

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