How to backup/restore excluding filestream varbinary in SQL Server 2008?

Posted by fdierre on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by fdierre
Published on 2011-02-28T11:09:17Z Indexed on 2013/10/31 3:58 UTC
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sql-server-2008

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database-backup

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filestream

There is an application used in a production site that uses SQL Server 2008 as its DBMS.

The database schema uses Filestream Varbinary to save binary data on the filesystem instead of directly into the DB tables.

The point is that now and then it would be useful to copy the production database on development machines, mostly for doing troubleshooting. The database is too big for comfortably moving it around, but it would be ok if it could be moved leaving out the filestream varbinary fields.

In other words, I am trying to make an "imperfect" copy of a database: i.e., on the destination database, it is ok to have NULL values instead of the varbinary. Is this possible? I tried looking for the feature on the SQL Server Management studio and did a backup that excludes the filegroup containing the filestream varbinary, but I cannot restore: MSSMS complains that the restore cannot be done because the backup is incomplete (of course).

Is it possible to achieve what I am trying to do in some way?

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