Differential backups rendered useless by backup device

  • You should disable the SQL Server VSS Writer service. See this discussion.

    Also for VMware snapshots it is possible to exclude specific writers by editing vmbackup.conf.

  • ShuNx239 (1/3/2014)


    You should disable the SQL Server VSS Writer service.

    That is what I eventually did.

    11:29pm - net stop "SQL Server VSS Writer"

    11:31pm - net start "SQL Server VSS Writer"

    🙂

  • sqlskj4000 (1/6/2014)


    ShuNx239 (1/3/2014)


    You should disable the SQL Server VSS Writer service.

    That is what I eventually did.

    11:29pm - net stop "SQL Server VSS Writer"

    11:31pm - net start "SQL Server VSS Writer"

    🙂

    SAN replication has VSS support in Windows that is triggering the SQL Server VSS Writer at backup time. The VSS Writer is effectively creating a snapshot on the database and running a full backup which you probably see logged in msdb database. Try to implement full backups daily and take transaction log backups every 15 mins if possible. If you disable VSS writer you might see transactional integrity issues on the SAN copy. Please double check. If you are not worried about the SAN snapshots then it's good to disable the VSS writer.

  • In our case, our final solution was a bit involved, but for us it is robust and keeps everything we need:

    1- We mirrored the database(s) into a mirror server.

    2- We now take snapshots of the mirror server and leave the principal alone.

    3- And of course, we do not do any backups of the mirror server, except the snapshots.

    This way the principal is fine and dandy, has a mirror stand-by to fall back to, and we have the snapshots of the mirror to use during Disaster Recovery exercises. Works perfectly in our environment.

    Thanks all,

    Raphael

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