How long does it take to create a backup for my Amazon RDS for SQL Server DB instance?

Resolution

The time it takes to create a backup for your DB instance depends on the database workload. A higher database workload increases the number of incremental changes in the volume and results in a longer backup time.

In Amazon RDS for SQL Server, you can use automated backups, manual DB snapshots, and native backups to back up your DB instances.

Amazon RDS automated backups and manual DB snapshots are storage volume snapshots of your DB instance that back up the entire DB instance. The first backup of a DB instance contains the data for the full DB instance. The subsequent backups of the same DB instance are incremental and only save the data that changes after your most recent snapshot.

For native SQL backups, you can create full and differential backups of your DB instance, and then store the file in Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) buckets. You can also create backups of individual databases on your DB instance.

In some scenarios, your DB instance might require a full backup instead of an incremental backup. For example, your instance might require a full backup after a Multi-Availability Zone failover or after you turn on Amazon RDS automated backups. It can take much longer to create a full backup.

Other factors that can increase backup time include the following:

• CPU and memory availability
• Disk I/O
• Database activity
• Size of the database

Check the progress of a native backup or restore

To check the progress of native backup or restore, get the Task ID after you perform the backup or restore statement. Or, run the following script to identify all of the completed and pending tasks for a specific database:

exec msdb.dbo.rds_task_status @db_name='database_name'

Note: In the previous script, replace database_name with the name for your database.

To track the status of the job, run the following SQL statement as a guide:

exec msdb..rds_task_status @task_id= 5

Note: In the previous statement, replace task_id with the ID for your task.

For more information, see Tracking the status of tasks.

Check the progress of a manual DB snapshot

Complete the following steps:

1. Open the Amazon RDS console.
2. Choose Snapshots.
3. Select the snapshot you want to check the progress for, and then choose the Progress tab.

Note: You can't check the progress of an Amazon RDS automated backup from the Amazon RDS console or with the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI). Instead, you must contact AWS Support.