ASE load vs drop, create and load database?

[noah_l]

Hi Experts,

i want to know the difference on Best-Practice ASE restores. The load operation of a ASE Dump is used for any restore, so far so good.

However what do you recommend on how to perform the restore? Should i only load the dump into the existent database or should i first drop the SID DB, then recreate the SID DB and then load my dump for restore into the "fresh" database?

[former_member990744 · Accepted solution]

Dropping a database will clear the device pages.

Creating a database, unless you specify FOR LOAD, will also initialize the devices. If you use FOR LOAD, then it will initialize the alloc pages only (1 every 256 pages)

Load database will initialize any page that is not copied. So, if you drop & recreate, you will be reinitializing the same set of pages multiple times and unnnecessarily.

Restoring a database will also have to reconcile the entries in sysusages, and depending on how you create it, the database shape might not be as nice as you think. If the database is already created, the database fragments in sysusages will match and nothing will have to be adjusted.

So, if the database is already created I would recomend that you just load the backup on top of it.

[noah_l · Accepted solution]

Thank you for your advice! So an only "Load" is the way to go.