July 31, 2008 at 7:28 am
I have a SQL 2005 server that is used as a warehouse. Eventually we plan to move this server to the SAN, but for now the databases are stored on the server's disk. I need to backup each of the databases. We have another server that is used just for backups. I would like to use that server, but is there a way to backup directly to that server rather than backing up to the warehouse server and then moving the backup files over?
July 31, 2008 at 8:21 am
Yes...
If you use a domain account for the SQL server service, and that account has permissions to write to the other server then you can back up directly (using a mapped drive or a unc name)
But...
If you look on these forums, and elsewhere on the web, you'll see that people (including myself) have had a lot of problems where the backups fail (especially on large databases) due to a network glitch, or authentication problems - where the authentication seems to get lost part way through the backup.
If you have the space, you may be better to backup to the same server, and use something like robocopy to move the backups to the other server one by one.... or look at some of the products that produce compressed backups.
July 31, 2008 at 9:39 am
Yes, Ian is correct. I faced the same issue related to backups.
July 31, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Hi
I had a very similar situation the other year. The server that hosted our data warehouse database only had direct attached storage and the DBs had grown in size so that a backup image was larger than the available free space. At the time I was left with no option (not my call) but to backup directly to a network share. It actually worked really well from a reliability point of view. We did have a robust network and Active Directory setup where a problem with either one was a very rare exception though. I don’t think we had a problem in the 8 months we ran things like this.
What I did notice as a problem was performance. Backing up directly to the network location took 33% longer than backing up locally and then using robocopy to move the backup image to the network location. I did a number of tests and it was always pretty close to a third longer. After a bit of stuffing around we found out it was because of the verify stage. If you backup up locally and move, verifying the backup image happens locally. Directly to the network location and the verify happens across the network. In our situation that was acceptable, kind of.
- Alex
- EBH
If brute force is not working you're not using enough.
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