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SQL SERVER - What Is Wait Type Parallel Backup Queue

The document discusses the SQL Server wait type "parallel_backup_queue". It occurs when restoring backup files in parallel to serialize the output. The writer worked with a user who was experiencing long restore times with this wait type. Examining the process, they found it was reading the entire 1.5TB backup file in chunks. This helped explain the large time and parallel_backup_queue wait. The restore eventually failed with an error about the backup media being incorrectly formed.

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166 views

SQL SERVER - What Is Wait Type Parallel Backup Queue

The document discusses the SQL Server wait type "parallel_backup_queue". It occurs when restoring backup files in parallel to serialize the output. The writer worked with a user who was experiencing long restore times with this wait type. Examining the process, they found it was reading the entire 1.5TB backup file in chunks. This helped explain the large time and parallel_backup_queue wait. The restore eventually failed with an error about the backup media being incorrectly formed.

Uploaded by

message2teja
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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SQL SERVER � What is Wait Type Parallel Backup Queue?

July 10, 2019


Pinal Dave
SQL Tips and Tricks
1 Comment
SQL SERVER - What is Wait Type Parallel Backup Queue? parallel-backup-800x671
Recently one of my blog readers contacted me and ask if I knew about wait type
parallel_backup_queue. I have often got the same question during the Comprehensive
Database Performance Health Check. My search on the internet was not giving me a
lot of details. Only official documentation which I could find was about wait
statistics related to Parallel Backup Queue is very little available online.

Occurs when serializing output produced by RESTORE HEADERONLY, RESTORE


FILELISTONLY, or RESTORE LABELONLY.

I asked him, my friend, what exact command he is running, and he informed that he
is running below.

1
RESTORE FILELISTONLY FROM DISK='F:\Backups\ProductionDB.bak'
This is matching with documentation but what is �serializing output�? He informed
that he was checking sys.dm_exec_requests DMV and filtering for the SPID which was
running this command.

Solarwinds
I asked him to check sys.sysprocesses and we found that there were two threads for
that SPID. One of them was in a suspended state with wait type
parallel_backup_queue and another was running and showing wait of BACKUPIO. I
captured process monitor to check IO and I was surprised to see that the above
command was reading the whole file in chunks. The database size was close it 1.5
TB.

So, I asked him to leave it running as it was reading the backup file. Finally, we
found that it failed with an error:

The media family on device is incorrectly formed.

This made me believe that if there is a problem with the backup media, the commands
would take a long time and we might see wait of parallel_backup_queue.

I have not been able to reproduce this in my lab even with 50 GB backup. If you
find a way, please share via comments. Or if you have some other findings of
Parallel Backup Queue, please share that as well.

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