Recovery Mode Selection

When to use the simple recovery mode

If all of the following requirements are met, the simple recovery mode is used:

• No fault point recovery is required. If the database is lost or damaged, all updates from the last backup to the fault will be lost, but you are willing to accept this loss.

• You are willing to bear the risk of losing some data in the log.
• You do not want to back up or restore transaction logs, but only rely on full backup and differential backup.

For more information, see .

When to use the full recovery mode

If any of the following requirements are met, the full recovery mode is used (you can also choose to use the large-capacity log recovery mode ):

• You must be able to recover all data.

• The database contains multiple file groups, and you want to restore read/write secondary file groups segment by segment (and read-only file groups optional ).
• You must be able to recover to the fault point.
• You want to restore a single page.
• You are willing to take on the management overhead of transaction log backup.

For more information, see .

When to use the large-capacity log recovery mode

The large-capacity log recovery mode is designed to strictly supplement the full recovery mode. We recommend that you use this mode only when you perform large-scale large-capacity operations and restore the database at no time point.

• Does the database perform periodic large-capacity database operations?

  In this recovery mode, most large-capacity operations only perform minimum logging. If the full recovery mode is used, you can temporarily switch to the large-capacity log recovery mode before performing such large-capacity operations. For more information about which operations are least recorded in the large-capacity log recovery mode, see .

  Generally, the large-capacity log recovery mode is similar to the full recovery mode, but it records most large-capacity operations in the minimal mode. Transaction Log backup capture logs and all operation results that have been completed since the last backup in the minimal mode. This will make log backup very large. Therefore, the large-capacity log recovery mode is only suitable for large-capacity operations that can be recorded in the smallest way. We recommend that you use the full recovery mode for the rest of the time. After completing a group of large-capacity operations, we recommend that you immediately switch back to the full recovery mode.

For more information about the large-capacity log recovery mode (including its limits), see .

For more information about the recovery operations supported by the differential recovery mode, see .