I have 2 different servers that run nightly backup jobs to a network drive using the UNC format. I am noticing the larger databases encountering the following errors on a regular basis
Error: 18210, Severity: 16, State: 1.
'\\fnfssql3\SQLBackups\MNSQL05\<database>.BAK'. Operating system error 64(The specified network name is no longer available.).
BACKUP failed to complete the command BACKUP DATABASE <database>. Check the backup application log for detailed messages.
There are 5 databases on this server all backed up by the same job and 3 of them wortk fine and 2 of them fail so it is not a permissions problem. Have there been any problems with backing up to a network drive in 2005?
Well, backing up to networks drives is not officially *supported*, thats why the browser only display the local drives.
The reason for that and the logical explanation why you shouldn′t do that is, because the network is less reliable than local drives. If you want to make sure the database is backuped to network, you will have to either make sure the windows where the backups are streamed to the network don′t interfer with each other or you use a local backup to a drive and copy the files later over. Thats the most reliable option beside using a NAS / SAN.
Jens K. Suessmeyer
http://www.sqlserver2005.de
|||Network hic-up can do this. One can see such error without sql involved.
Try trapping the error and retry the operation. Also, try backing up locally as suggested by Jens.
|||
Backing up database to a UNC path is fully supported. You must be thinking of running the database from a network drive.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304261
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2000/maintain/sqlbackuprest.mspx
|||Oj,
the reason why I put *supported* in stars is, that it is sure supported, but not reliable in terms of just having a network share associated on a UNC share. (I thought he explanation should made that clearer, sorry for the poor explanation :-) ) The reliablity descrease due to your mentioned outages on the network. Having big backup files for the transfer over the network is there not recommended undless you have a SAN or a NAS which ensures more reliablity for the transfer. I often used the UNC path backup too on customer sites but either tried to shape the task to copy the files to different time windows or used a local backup and copied the files over with a mechanism (like xcopy / robocopy) to restart in the case of a connection loss.
Jens K. Suessmeyer
http://www.sqlserver2005.de
