Scott Costello-401147 (5/6/2013)
Lynn,Thanks so much for the reply. If I try and restore the FULL and then the DIFF for April 18th (skipping all the differentials between) I get the message...
This operation failed with errors.
Restoring PARS_RESTORE (database) from:
T:\DatabaseBackups\PARS_2013\April 18th Restore\PARS_2013_DIFF_20130419_010100.sqb
SQL Server error
SQL error 3013: SQL error 3013: RESTORE DATABASE is terminating abnormally.
SQL error 3136: SQL error 3136: This differential backup cannot be restored because the database has not been restored to the correct earlier state.
SQL Backup exit code: 1100
SQL error code: 3136
If I take a look at all the differential files, they are all random sizes. What i mean is they don't get larger and larger, which I suspect they should if they were all based off the Last FULL backup.
Is it possible that another backup that is running each day is messing things up? Don't judge me as I'm still learning 😀
That is the danger of having such a long string of differential backups. A full backup run anytime after the last full will break the string of differentials. Do you know if another full backup is being run?
After a week or so, a differential will probably be close to the size of a full backup anyway, so you would probably be better off running more frequent full backups.
I like to have a full backup run daily, along with transaction log backups every 15 minutes. I rarely use differential backups.