regular full backup on secondary replica

Question

In Availability Groups(AG), can we take regular full backup on secondary replica

Answer 1

Hi @Chaitanya Kiran,

We cannot take regular full backup on secondary replica, it will change the database, you can take COPY_ONLY backup. Hope this article can help you well.

In addition, here is a known issue: https://www.sqlservercentral.com/forums/topic/why-cant-we-take-regular-full-backup-on-secondary-replica, I hope this can help you understand.

Best regards,

Lucy Chen

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Answer 2

Copy-only full backup - as per https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/database-engine/availability-groups/windows/active-secondaries-backup-on-secondary-replicas-always-on-availability-groups?view=sql-server-ver16

Backup Types Supported on Secondary Replicas

• BACKUP DATABASE supports only copy-only full backups of databases, files, or filegroups when it's executed on secondary replicas. Copy-only backups don't impact the log chain or clear the differential bitmap.

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hth

Marcin