Question

I have a test.bak file in my local machine. I need to restore this file to remote machine’s database. How do I do that?

When I try this, the remote database throws an error that it is not able to find test.bak on the local filesystem.

Query

RESTORE DATABASE TESTPROJECT 
FROM DISK = 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10_50.ICON3\MSSQL\Backup\test.bak'

Error

Cannot open backup device 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10_50.ICON3\MSSQL\Backup\test.bak'. Operating system error 2(The system cannot find the file specified.).

How can I achieve this? I am using Microsoft SQL Server 2008.

Answer 1

In the context of this answer – remote refers to your machine, local is the database server.

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Restore from local filesystem

Copy the backup file to the local filesystem, and restore directly from this copy.

Prerequisites

• Copy test.bak to C:\test.bak on the server

Syntax

RESTORE DATABASE TESTPROJECT FROM DISK = N'C:\test.bak';

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Restore from remote filesystem

Alternatively you can restore from the remote backup file using UNC syntax. I typically don’t use this option, but it is useful if there won’t be enough disk space on local filesystem for both the backup file and the restored database.

The success of this option depends on some variables – permissions on the remote filesystem assigned to the database service account, network health, and others.

Prerequisites

• Remote machine name is remotemachine
• Backup located on remote at 'C:\test.bak'
• Database service account has access to the remote administrator share C$

Syntax

RESTORE DATABASE TESTPROJECT FROM DISK = N'\\remotemachine\c$\test.bak';