Differential Backups in SQLServer 2005

  • Hi All,

    Normally, differential backups takes min 50 mins to max 02 hrs 30 mins in one of our db server but in this week..

    Monday - 37 mins;Tuesday - 11 hrs 25 mins;Wednesday - 14 hrs 50 mins

    Can someone please advise me what would be the reason.

    Thanks and Regards,

    Ravi.

  • ravisamigo (1/11/2012)


    Hi All,

    Normally, differential backups takes min 50 mins to max 02 hrs 30 mins in one of our db server but in this week..

    Monday - 37 mins;Tuesday - 11 hrs 25 mins;Wednesday - 14 hrs 50 mins

    Can someone please advise me what would be the reason.

    Thanks and Regards,

    Ravi.

    Not enough information. There could be numerous reasons, and anything we give you right now would simply be shots in the dark.

    How big is the database; are the backups run disk to disk locally, disk to disk to a file share, disk to tape; has there been any changes to the server (hardware or software), to SQL Server?

  • Was there a large data load on Monday? How about an index defrag process or something along those lines where large portions of the data would be affected and marked as needing to be backed up? Or, the other route, check for disk contention or CPU contention during the backup window. If it's running for 12 hours, I'm sure you're into the normal production cycle of the business.

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  • IMHO unless you get to above 1TB, there is very little advantage to taking a differential backup compared to a full backup, especially where the full backup is at a weekend and the differentials are done daily. It might be worth looking at how your recovery model would be simplified by doing full backup each day, particularly as you can fairly accurately perdit the duration and disk space requirement of a full backup.

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