Full/Differential backup - what's used to determine the differential backup content?
- by gernblandston
Let's say I have a 'MyDB' SQL Server 2005 database (simple recovery) in which I do a Full backup on Sunday, and Differentials every other night
BACKUP DATABASE [MyDB] TO DISK = N'c:\Database Backups\MyDB\MyDB_Full.bak'
WITH NOFORMAT, INIT, NAME = N'MyDB.BAK', SKIP, NOREWIND, NOUNLOAD, STATS =
10
and
BACKUP DATABASE [MyDB] TO DISK = N'c:\Database Backups\MyDB\MyDB_Diff.bak'
WITH NOINIT, DIFFERENTIAL, NAME= 'MyDB.BAK', STATS= 10
What does the differential backup process use to decide what data gets backed up on the differential nights? Does it need the mydb_full.bak file to do its business?
If I wanted to save disk space, could I zip up the mydb_full.bak file to a .zip file after it's created without adversely affecting the differential backups, and if I needed to restore, just unzip the full backup before starting?
