Category: Backup Restore

SQL Server Backup Under the SIMPLE Recovery Model

I tend to forget how to do certain database administration tasks if I don’t do them often enough. No matter how *SIMPLE* they might be. :)

Recently at work I saw a production database server that was in the SIMPLE recovery model, that was scheduled for weekly FULL backups and daily DIFFERENTIAL backups. I was a little confused when I first saw this. I wondered, “I thought you cannot do FULL backups in SIMPLE recovery model?” So I checked out Books Online. Continue reading “SQL Server Backup Under the SIMPLE Recovery Model”

A very quick and easy way to see the how fast your hard disk is, is to run:

BACKUP DATABASE testDB TO DISK=’NUL:’

Don’t mistake the ‘NUL’ for NULL. They are two separate things. The ‘NUL:’ is considered a device and anything written to ‘NUL’ is discarded. Continue reading “BACKUP DATABASE testDB TO DISK=’NUL:’”

Here’s a quick and easy formula to help show upper management how much your backup compression strategy is saving the company.

Let’s assume your original non-compressed SQL backup file is 100MB. After you enabled compression your compressed backup size is now 5MB. Plug in the numbers below and you get: Continue reading “Calculate Database Compression Ratio”