Re: [Firebird-devel] non-transportable backup using without "-seservice_mgr" results in an backup file ~50% larger than the source database

[Brenden W. <BKW...@dr...>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alex Peshkoff [mailto:pes...@ma...]
> Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2010 2:35 AM
> To: fir...@li...
> Subject: Re: [Firebird-devel] non-transportable backup using without "-
> seservice_mgr" results in an backup file ~50% larger than the source
> database
> 
>  On 10/13/10 23:24, Brenden Walker wrote:
> > I originally posted this to firebird-support and didn't get any
> feedback, figured I'd post here before entering an issue.
> >
> > I performed most of these tests with 2.1.3.18185, however I just
> tested again with 2.5.0.26074 and the results were the same.
> >
> > In short, source database is roughly 21gig, freshly restored from and
> .fbk
> >
> > If I backup with the below command:
> > gbak.exe -y d:\temp\i21426\backup.log -se service_mgr -v -nt -user
> sysdba -password masterkey d:\temp\i21426\SW.fdb d:\temp\i21426\SW.fbk
> >
> > Results in 13,257,345KB file, took approximately 31 minutes.  Likely
> what one would expect.
> >
> > However dropping "-se service_mgr" from the above results in a huge
> FBK file 32,220,963KB file.
> >
> > Backing up the same database in transportable format results in an
> even smaller file (11,205,556KB) with the file size being exactly the
> same whether I specify "-se service_mgr" or not, so this appears to be
> specific to the non transportable format.
> >
> > I searched the tracker and wasn't able to find an existing issue for
> this.  I'll add one if that's the correct next step, I just wanted to
> run this by someone before doing so.
> >
> > We could likely provide the source database on HD if needed, although
> I'd probably want to remove more sensitive customer information and
> retest prior to doing so (for obvious reasons).
> Looks like a bug. 2 questions:
> Can you reproduce an issue with database of smaller size?
> Are both non-transportable backups (big and small) restorable?

I tried reproducing with smaller DB's (6gig as well as 12gig) with no luck.  All -nt backups where the same size, and transportables where the same size (although not the same size as the non-trans backups, expected I believe).

I was able to restore all of the backups without any problem, resulting database was roughly the same size in all cases.  I even did a database table data compare using IbExpert and the DB's were exactly the same in structure and content.

I also tried restoring the transportable format and then backing that up into non-transportable with and without -se service_mgr.  That exhibited the same behaviour so whatever it is 'survives' a backup/restore.

The above tests were only done on 2.1.3 though, as I'm sure you can imagine these tests take a long time.

I'll take a shot today paring this database down to a smaller size (drop a few of our large tables) and see if the problem persists. Perhaps I can get a database that's small enough to download.  I'll post a follow up as soon as that's complete.