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SQL SERVER – Small Backup for Large Database

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Recently, I had a very interesting experience with one of my customer while working with them on Comprehensive Database Performance Health Check. The issue was related to small backup for the large database and it was so much interesting I decided to share with all of you.

Real World Customer Story

While working together with their health check of the server, a client asked me that they believe there is some issue going on with one of their databases. The size of their database was in over 900 GB but the backup of the entire database was less than 300 MB.

The customers were really worried about the smaller size of the backup and were suspicious that backup did not contain all the data. They asked me to look into this and I had a very interesting finding for this scenario.

Empty Big Log File

After carefully look into their database, I realize that they had a big log file which was pretty much empty and due to same reasons, they were under impression that their database is very big but when the backup was happening it did not contain the empty part of the log file and that was the reason for the smaller backup file.

Recreate the Scenario

Let us re-create the scenario.

CREATE DATABASE [BigLog]
ON PRIMARY
( NAME = N'BigLog', FILENAME = N'D:\BigLog.mdf' , SIZE = 8192KB , MAXSIZE = UNLIMITED, FILEGROWTH = 1024KB )
LOG ON
( NAME = N'BigLog_log', FILENAME = N'D:\BigLog_log.ldf' , SIZE = 8192000KB , MAXSIZE = 2048GB , FILEGROWTH = 1024KB )
GO

If you go and check the size of the file in the explorer you will notice that log file is of 8 GB big. However, as we have just created the database and have not populated them, the entire database is technically empty.

Now let us take backup of the entire database using the following script.

BACKUP DATABASE [BigLog] TO DISK = N'D:\BigLog.bak' WITH STATS = 10
GO

Now let us go and check the size of the backup file.

SQL SERVER - Small Backup for Large Database smallbackup

You will notice that even though the size of the database is overall very big when SQL Server takes a backup, it remove the empty space and take backup of the data only. This is indeed a very good feature otherwise, the size of the backup will be unnecessarily big.

The Best Practices

As per the best practices, it is always a good idea to Shrink your log file before taking the full backup as it will remove the unnecessary empty space in the log backup. This will be very helpful when you try to restore the database. When you try to restore your database from the tiny backup it will eventually create your data and log file to the original size when the database backup.

This means if you do not shrink your log file before you take the full backup, when you restore the database, it will create the log file with the empty space and it will essentially waste your important drive space.

Your Turn

Do let me know if you find this story interesting or not. I have many such stories I will be happy to share based on your feedback. Additionally, if you have any such interesting stories with your customers or at a workplace, do share with me in the comment and I will publish it with due credit to you.

Reference: Pinal Dave (https://blog.sqlauthority.com)

First appeared on SQL SERVER – Small Backup for Large Database


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