Introductory questions

vyv53

Hi everybody,
Just started to play with trial version of sql backup 5 and have some pretty simple questions:
1. How to stop/break backup (from GUI or command line) in case I need to do this?
2. How to restore backup using GUI to another location, i.e. not to original backuped sql server? I mean let say I backuped DB from Server1 to Server2. Now I would like to restore DB to Server 2 :?: and I managed to do this using command line "Restore" command. But when I tried to do this using GUI it seems I do not have option to restore to Server2 but only to original Server1 instead. What I am doing wrong?
3. Does anybody have experience using this backup stuff to backup let say 5 TB database (Sql server 2005, 64 bit)? How long did it take?
Thanks

petey

1. It is not possible to cancel a backup/restore started by SQL Backup cleanly. If you really need to cancel the process, you can stop the SQL Backup Agent service, but this stops all active SQL Backup processes, and leaves incomplete backup files about.

2. Using the GUI, connect to server 2, and browse to the network share containing the files on server 1.

vyv53

Thanks for your answer but I would like to return to my last question of initial post- does anybody (Red Gate) have experience of very large (some TB) database backup? I tried to backup 5 TB database (Sql Server 2005 64 bit) to network share over 1 Gbps card. First 1 Tb was processed in 14 hours, then only 0.6 Tb for next 11 hours and I stopped backup- too long and log file grew up till 50% full. Do you have some benchmarks? What can be possible reason for so low backup rate? Thanks

HJoyce

The number of variables involved when backing up databases makes it difficult to offer an example that would be a fair reflection of how long it could take for a given size of database. You may find an independent report useful that sets backing up databases with SQL Backup in context. You can download this report from our website http://www.red-gate.com/products/SQL_Backup/tolly_report.pdf.

Our customer feedback also helps in giving an idea of the time taken to back up individual databases with SQL Backup. Feedback can be read on the SQL Backup web pages: http://www.red-gate.com/products/SQL_Backup/testimonials.htm.

If you are backing up directly to a network share then you may want to try using the MAXDATABLOCK keyword which specifies the maximum size of data blocks to be used when writing data to network shares. Details of this are in the help file.

Hope that helps.
Regards,
Helen