How to find out how long a SQL Server backup took

Problem

Many shops do full backups of their databases as part of a job within SQL Agent, typically as part of a maintenance plan. This job will often times do all database backups in secession. As such, while you may know how long the job takes, you may not know how long any one particular database takes to have a full backup taken. When deploying changes it is advised to take a full backup of a database prior to deploying the change and a common question faced will be “how long will it take?”.

Solution

The information is readily available inside the msdb database, making the solution as easy as a few lines of T-SQL.

The T-SQL provided below allows for you to input the name of a database if desired. I have also added a line that will filter the results, limiting your view to only the databases that are currently listed in the master.dbo.sysdatabases table. If you comment out that line of code you will return information on the last time a database was backed up on the instance, regardless if the database is currently listed in master.dbo.sysdatabases.

List of Most Recent SQL Server Backups

Here is the T-SQL

DECLARE @dbname sysname
SET @dbname = NULL --set this to be whatever dbname you want
SELECT 
  bup.user_name AS [User],
  bup.database_name AS [Database],
  bup.server_name AS [Server],
  bup.backup_start_date AS [Backup Started],
  bup.backup_finish_date AS [Backup Finished]
  ,CAST((CAST(DATEDIFF(s, bup.backup_start_date, bup.backup_finish_date) AS int))/3600 AS varchar) + ' hours, ' 
  + CAST((CAST(DATEDIFF(s, bup.backup_start_date, bup.backup_finish_date) AS int))/60 AS varchar)+ ' minutes, '
  + CAST((CAST(DATEDIFF(s, bup.backup_start_date, bup.backup_finish_date) AS int))%60 AS varchar)+ ' seconds'
  AS [Total Time]
FROM msdb.dbo.backupset bup
WHERE bup.backup_set_id IN
  (SELECT MAX(backup_set_id) 
   FROM msdb.dbo.backupset
   WHERE database_name = ISNULL(@dbname, database_name) --if no dbname, then return all
   AND type = 'D' --only interested in the time of last full backup
   GROUP BY database_name) 
/* COMMENT THE NEXT LINE IF YOU WANT ALL BACKUP HISTORY */
AND bup.database_name IN (SELECT name FROM master.dbo.sysdatabases)
ORDER BY bup.database_name

The script will return the following result set:

Here is a screenshot of a sample result set returned by the script.

List of SQL Server Backups

If you want to get a list of all backups and not just the most recent you can issue the following:

DECLARE @dbname sysname
SET @dbname = NULL --set this to be whatever dbname you want
SELECT 
  bup.user_name AS [User],
  bup.database_name AS [Database],
  bup.server_name AS [Server],
  bup.backup_start_date AS [Backup Started],
  bup.backup_finish_date AS [Backup Finished]
  ,CAST((CAST(DATEDIFF(s, bup.backup_start_date, bup.backup_finish_date) AS int))/3600 AS varchar) + ' hours, ' 
  + CAST((CAST(DATEDIFF(s, bup.backup_start_date, bup.backup_finish_date) AS int))/60 AS varchar)+ ' minutes, '
  + CAST((CAST(DATEDIFF(s, bup.backup_start_date, bup.backup_finish_date) AS int))%60 AS varchar)+ ' seconds'
  AS [Total Time]
FROM msdb.dbo.backupset bup
/* COMMENT THE NEXT LINE IF YOU WANT ALL BACKUP HISTORY */
WHERE bup.database_name IN (SELECT name FROM master.dbo.sysdatabases)
ORDER BY bup.database_name

Next Steps

• Take the above code and execute against your instance, making certain to insert the correct database name if you want to filter it to a specific database

Thomas LaRock

Thomas LaRock is a Head Geek at SolarWinds and a Microsoft Certified Master, Microsoft Data Platform MVP, VMware vExpert, and former Microsoft Certified Trainer. He has over 20 years’ experience in the IT industry in roles including programmer, developer, analyst, and database administrator.

LaRock has spent much of his career focused on data and database administration, which led to his being chosen as a Technical Evangelist for Confio Software in 2010. While at Confio, his research and experience helped to create the initial versions of the software now known as SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer. LaRock joined the SolarWinds family through the acquisition of Confio in 2013.

LaRock is also the Immediate Past President of the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) and is an avid blogger, author, and technical reviewer for numerous books about SQL Server management. He now focuses his time working with customers to help resolve problems and answer questions regarding database performance tuning and virtualization for SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, SAP, and DB2, making it his mission to give IT and data professionals longer weekends.