Thanks Gianluca,

So I'm looking at the pre-installation checklist and there's one point I'm not sure I understand.

2. SQL Server Admins Group added to the Local Administrators Group.

Can somone explain?

Not sure if I'm explaining this properly but I have 5 physical drive.

2 physical drisks map to 1 logical drive C - This I'm using for OS and SQL Server

3...

Sure.... I agree but I didn't build the server...

TravisDBA (11/15/2012)

The key word here is "documented". Otherwise, they can just deny they told you to do it in front of the executive folks, or claim "I don't remember telling...

Thanks Tony.

I've done some more testing on a different server and it does appear the backup size field is the actual size of thephysical backup file:

As to the difefrence in...

Yes I am.

Okay so I've done a local backup of the model database and the backup file size matches...

No, I'm using native SQL backup

So the backupset table tells me this:

On the NAS I see this:

Notice the timestamp differences? No idea what's going on!

Very strange.. so in backupset table, only the master database's size matches the size of the physical file. For my other databases, the backupset table holds a smaller size than...

No, no backup compression no...

This particular server is 2005.

Thanks David.

I actually installed sp_whoisactive as soon as the SQL instance was back online 😀

Thanks for the links about the logging. That's exactly what I'm looking for.

If and when I...

My only concern is that by stopping/starting the SQL Server service, I may have stopped something from working. I'm looking at the SQL Server logs but I'm not sure how...

Finally... it stopped eventually and I started it again.

I now know this is not a dedicated SQL Server box so I took on your advice and changed the maximum server...

Yup.. you are right.

I'm going to wait and see what happens.

Thanks for all your help, much appreciated.

I'm getting worried now. The CPU is still maxed out, in SQL Server Configuration Manager the state of the SQL Server Service shows as Change pending...

What to do?!

Phew!!! .... I was so close to killing the process but then I stopped. I'm glad I didn't do it. I actually clicked the re-start button from the SQL Server...