restore to new db and DIFF backups

Question

restore to new db and DIFF backups

Jonathan Matt

SSCarpal Tunnel

Points: 4027
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November 29, 2012 at 2:22 pm

#270863

Recently a developer restored a backup of our production db as a new testing db on the same server.
That night I noticed that our differential backup job took no time to complete. It did not fail but completed in 0 sec and no differential backup was created. The transaction log backups continued as usual. The same thing happened on the second night. I took a full backup today to re-start the chain and I hope the differential succeeds tonight.
Any ideas why this occurred? Could it be related to the restore?
Thanks
Jonathan

Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

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MyDoggieJessie SSC-Forever Points: 44486 More actions · Answer 1

Has there been ANY data altering activity performed on the testing db since it was restored?

______________________________________________________________________________Never argue with an idiot; Theyll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience

Jonathan Matt SSCarpal Tunnel Points: 4027 More actions · Answer 2

Thanks for your reply!

The test database has since been deleted. The diff backup problem is with the original production db.

MyDoggieJessie SSC-Forever Points: 44486 More actions · Answer 3

Restoring a backup to a different server has no impact whatsoever on the original server the backup was created from. Are you using a maintenance plan per say or is this a custom backup solution, etc? Check your logs to make sure something actually occurred (which I am sure it did), you should see something like:

Processed 367096 pages for database 'MyDB', file 'MyDB' on file 1.
Processed 2 pages for database 'MyDB', file 'MyDB' on file 1.
BACKUP DATABASE successfully processed 367098 pages in 5.712 seconds (502.091 MB/sec).

______________________________________________________________________________Never argue with an idiot; Theyll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience

Jonathan Matt SSCarpal Tunnel Points: 4027 More actions · Answer 4

The backup was restored to the same server.

I am using the Hallengren scripts and procs. I will take a look at the logs.

Thanks

MyDoggieJessie SSC-Forever Points: 44486 More actions · Answer 5

The backup was restored to the same server.

Let me rephrase: As long as you restored the database backup to a new database, or overwrote one that's not the actual production database, you're still fine.

Recently a developer restored a backup of our production db as a new testing db on the same server.

What was this "backup" taken? What is the time difference between when that backup was taken, and when the next differential backup took place? Minutes? Hours? Days?

______________________________________________________________________________Never argue with an idiot; Theyll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience

Jonathan Matt SSCarpal Tunnel Points: 4027 More actions · Answer 6

The last full backup was taken last Sat night and differentials each night since. This is the full backup that was restored as the test db on Tuesday. I agree that the restore should have no effect on the production db meta-data for differential backups and maybe its just a coincidence. Something went wrong with the differentials, however. Yesterday's full backup has solved the problem.

Thanks for you help!