Remounting an existing virtual restore

[LHardy]

If a backup has been mounted as a virtual restore on one server, is it possible to transfer the SQB and VMDF/VLDF/VNDF files to a new server and remount them there?

[chriskelly]

Unfortunately this wouldn't work. You would need to move the .sqb backup file and then run the virtual restore process again to create a new virtual database.
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Chris Kelly
Technical Support Engineer

[LHardy]

Thanks for the reply. After some experimentation, I'd concluded that must be true. It is a shame, though. If I started over with the original SQB files, I would lose too much data for my present purposes, as the virtual mounts had been up for some time. So my only option was to make new complete backups of the old virtual mounts and then restore them again on the new server. This is fairly tedious, and it would be nice if there were an easier way. For your consideration.

[chriskelly]

SQL Virtual Restore was not designed for this kind of usage.

Your use case would be better suited by the sister tool SQL Storage Compress. It uses the same Hyperbac technology but in a different way. Basically it creates compressed .mdf, .ndf and .ldf files, rather than hooking into the backup file. More information can be found here: http://www.red-gate.com/products/dba/sql-storage-compress
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Chris Kelly
Technical Support Engineer