Benefits of marking a file group as read only

  • Am I correct in thinking that if you mark a file group as read only then these file groups would be excluded from the relevant backups?

    I am fairly sure statistics wouldn’t be automatically updated on this older data and that the opportunity for partial restores/backups also becomes available?

  • aaa-322853 (2/10/2012)


    Am I correct in thinking that if you mark a file group as read only then these file groups would be excluded from the relevant backups?

    No. It'll be part of full backups. Not diffs because nothing's changed (but that's not because it's read-only, it's only because nothing has changed)

    I am fairly sure statistics wouldn’t be automatically updated on this older data and that the opportunity for partial restores/backups also becomes available?

    Stats aren't auto-updated on tables that don't change regardless of the read-write settings.

    Benefits - file/filegroup restores in simple recovery (as well as in full/bulk-logged where it's possible for read-only and read-write filegroups). No locks taken when querying the data in the read-only filegroup.

    Gail Shaw
    Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
    SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

    We walk in the dark places no others will enter
    We stand on the bridge and no one may pass
  • Sorry, yes I should have been more specific when I said 'relevant backups'

  • The fact that it's read-only is not what affects its presence/absence in a diff backup. A read-write filegroup that's had no changes since the last full backup also won't get backed up in a differential.

    Gail Shaw
    Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
    SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

    We walk in the dark places no others will enter
    We stand on the bridge and no one may pass

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