Need advice concerning the restoration of an sql 2005 Database

Question

Hello.

Our goal is to restore a test environment from our live environment, so basically we
would like to simply backup our current live databases, and just restore them
in our test server.

However... we do not have enough room to move the backups, one of our databases is 50 GB, and we only have around 20 GB free(the backup is 40 GB uncompressed).
We were thinking of dropping that database to make room for the backup, but I'm assuming that when it restores it, it will run our space.

I am also thinking that we could just Detach/Attach the database file, but I am assuming that this would mean that we have to take our live database down(which we don't want to do).

Another option is to restore from a network drive, so just set the restore to \severname\X$\RestoreFolder
But are there any things that I should be aware of if we do this?

I would like to thank everyone for your suggestions in advance.

Answer 1

When you say the database is 50 GB, is that just the MDF file? Or is does the LDF file make up a large portion of the 50 GB? Do you need all the log information on a test machine?

To be honest, I'd be tempted to buy a new hard drive and put it in the test server. Even the cheapest one you can find should have more than enough space for several test copies of the database.

Answer 2

Upgrade your hardware. Even a development/test machine should have enough space to backup/restore the catalogs you're working with.