MS SQL backups each 150gb - too big!

Rapid Recover server 6.4 w/ agent 6.4.  SQL server 2017 on Windows Server 2016.  the sql server is pretty new, months old.  I got some complaints from users about random slowdown throughout the day.. finally saw solid load on our SAN every 4hrs (our backups!)...   and I see that Rapid Recovery job for our sql server is averaging a 150gb sized backup!!!     HELP!!!   it's cranks along consuming the whole gig enet connection (which is probably another issue).  

why are the sql backups the size of the ENTIRE SQL database every backup???  EDIT:  I see that Base Image of the data drive(E) is being created every time.   so, new question:

why is a base image being created every time!?  just rebooted, looks like it's doing a 110gb incremental.  we have like 120gb of SQL dbs total!   something isn't correct here.

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  • The core logs the reason why a base image is taken in the apprecovery.log file. This KB - https://support.quest.com/appassure/kb/119700/determining-the-cause-of-a-base-image - is still relevant to Rapid Recovery so if it's actually taking a base image, take a look at this KB and go through and find the reason in the logs.

    If it's taking a 110 GB incremental, that's a different issue usually. Do you have any local SQL backups being taken? A lot of times we'll see customers backup the SQL database and do transaction log backups using SQL's native tools. But if you write that SQL .bak file to a volume protected by RR then you're going to see an incremental backup that is the same size as the backup (which is usually about as big as the production database).

    Some other reasons for large incrementals include jobs like SQL indexing or optimization. Anything that moves blocks of data around within SQL is going to cause block level change that results in larger backups. I've seen SQL servers set up with nightly indexing jobs that basically result in movement of every block of data in the database and hence a daily incremental that's the same size as the database.

  • this is great info, thanks.  So, after the reboot the initial was an incremental[good!], but still 110gb.  However, since then all backups have been incremental, and small in size!!  like 300mb etc...   awesome.    if it starts up again I will review your response on how to solve.  

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