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 Newbie Question - SQL Jobs

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munkdogg
Yak Posting Veteran

53 Posts

Posted - 2006-05-31 : 11:58:56
Hello,

I inherited a SQL server with jobs backing up a series of DB's to a single backup device. The media is overwritten each time the job runs.

I have created a duplicate job on a separate server, except this time the media is being appended to each time the job runs.

I can't seem to find the option to set media to overwrite or append. This is simple enough with manual backup jobs, but is there a place to establish this within a pre-set job?

For what its worth, the TSQL syntax is thus;

BACKUP DATABASE [DB_NAME] TO [DB_BACKUP_DEVICE] WITH NOINIT , NOUNLOAD , NAME = N'DB_NAME backup', SKIP , STATS = 10

Many thanks to all who respond!

nr
SQLTeam MVY

12543 Posts

Posted - 2006-05-31 : 12:56:10
I always backup to a file.
The file has yyyymmdd_hhmmss in the name and a job goes around deleting old files using the filename.

That means you can easily deal with the backups separately and if you lose a file you should still have the others.

You are testing backups aren't you.

==========================================
Cursors are useful if you don't know sql.
DTS can be used in a similar way.
Beer is not cold and it isn't fizzy.
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munkdogg
Yak Posting Veteran

53 Posts

Posted - 2006-05-31 : 14:41:49
The backup device is nothing more than a .bak file on the hard disk, which is then in turn backed up to tape along with the rest of the volume.

I can forsake keeping a catalogue of backup files on hand, since restoring from tape is so quick and easy.

The key component of this would be to conserve disk space. Hence overwriting the existing media.
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tkizer
Almighty SQL Goddess

38200 Posts

Posted - 2006-05-31 : 14:53:41
You need to specify WITH INIT if you want it to overwrite. WITH NOINIT means to append.

Tara Kizer
aka tduggan
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munkdogg
Yak Posting Veteran

53 Posts

Posted - 2006-05-31 : 16:32:57
thank you tkizer!!
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