Here’s a question that came in – what changed in SQL Server 2005 that allows concurrent log and full backups?


First a little background, in case you didn’t know about the change in behavior. In SQL Server 2000, a concurrent log backup with either a full or diff backup (I’ll just say ‘full’ from now on but take it to mean ‘full or diff’) was not permitted. The reason is that a log backup would clear the inactive portion of the log once it’s been backed up, but a full backup may still need some of that log so it can’t be cleared (see this post and this post for an explanation). The simple route was taken of disallowing concurrent log backups with fulls.


In SQL Server 2005, the restriction was lifted, but there’s a subtle twist. You can do concurrent log backups with fulls BUT the log is not cleared when the log backup ends. The clearing of the inactive portion of the log is delayed until the full backup completes. This could cause you to have disk space problems if your log generation rate is huge and you’re relying on very frequent backups to manage the log size.


So – what changed that allowed the SS2000 restriction to be lifted? Nothing – just the code was changed to delay the log clearing and allow the concurrent backups.


Pretty cool change – but watch out for the twist.

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