Post by Mark A. ParsonsAnd with 12.5.4 there is the new archive database feature
where, in essence, the dump files (must be on disk) are
mounted to an 'archive' database but not actually loaded
.. thus allowing you to 'load' a database into a smaller
database, eg, you could 'load' a 100GB database into a
100MB database.
The dump files are then, for the most part, accessible as
a *read only* database.
There are a few caveats in regards to needing some space
for dbcc fix's and recovery page manipulation, issues
with compressed dumps, and of course you're not going to
get great performance from said database.
The objective would be to load (ie, mount) the databae
dump files and then pull the desired data out of said
dump files into permanent tables elsewhere on the
dataserver.
Post by A.M.Post by unknownis there any special command or procedure that can be
used >>to load into a smaller database than the database
in which >>the dump was taken.
Post by A.M.Unfortunately, no. The load will complain since it
need to match the original database's size. You can
only load into the same size or larger. You also
need to watch the version of the target since
databases can't be downgraded.
If you don't need to do this on a regular basis, you
can create a new db and use select into to copy
tables or use bcp. This approach isn't ideal for
regular copies.
Alternately, consider replication.
-am © MMVI