Restore DB to a point in time SQL SERVER 2008 R2

Question

I have a sql server 2008R2 DB with FULL recovery. A full backup done nightly at 2am (overwriting the previous night's .bak file) Every hour I have a Transnational backup .trn files

The last full backup was done today at 3am Sept 21. Today I was asked to make a copy of the database to a previous time Sept 20th 12PM.

I know how to restore from an older last full backup (say Sept 20 3am) and then apply the .trn files to bring it up to a certain point in time (backup with norecovery then apply trns).

But is it possible to go backwards in time in my situation given that the only full backup I have was taken 3am Sept 21st? if not please tell me how I can change my backup strategy to be able to do it in the future if I run into this again.

thanks

Answer 1

Not knowing much about your organization needs

I would suggest taking a FULL Backup every night.

Differential Backup every one hour and then transaction backup every 10 to 5 mins or

whatever suits your organization needs best

and SET Expirydate for your backups for 5 to 7 days so that new backup will not overwrite the backups for so many days.

I think if you make a Backup strategy for your databases like this it will be helpful in future to go back in in time.

One more tip "A LESSON learnt the hard way" DO NOT FORGET to backup (master, model, msdb)

even once a week but make sure you have some sort of plan in place to backup these database.

I hope this reply will be helpful

Regards

Mo