In SQLBackupAndFTP v10 we used to have an option to customize backup file names like the form below. Because of multiple user requests we will be adding back custom naming formats to v11. This should go live in the next few weeks at the end of Oct 2017.
We won’t have DayOfMonth and DayOfWeek, but we’ll have the rest – in addition to the default format we will add YYYYMMDD and no date formats.
Note that full backups have no suffix, Differential end like ***diff.zip and Transaction Log backup files end like ***log.zip
Limitations
By using custom backup file names you are breaking a few things, so before you do that, make sure you are very clear of the trade offs.
- Auto-delete won’t work with “no date” format because it needs a date in the file name to understand when it is a time to delete it. It will still work if you have YYYYMMDD format
- Tran log backups should not be used with any custom format because they’d overwrite each other.
- overwrite the full backup file made on the same day and would make the restore impossible. Only basic full backups should be used.
- The automated restore (the one done through our interface) would work only in basic full backup restore scenarios.
Basically, you have to know what you are doing if you are using custom formats.
Why use custom formats?
If you want to use it to overwrite the old files – you shouldn’t. There’s auto-delete section in destination settings that allows you to set auto-delete for old files after a specified number of month/days.
If you store files in Dropbox or other cloud storage that supports versioning, you may choose no date format so that the new file overwrites the old, but Dropbox takes care of storing all the versions of the file.
If you use a script to restore a database on another server, than you may want to use no date file naming. Note however that very soon we will be releasing “Restore job” functionality that allows to set up replication without custom file names.