Back Up and Restore Data on TiDB Cloud Starter or Essential

This document describes how to back up and restore your data on TiDB Cloud Starter or TiDB Cloud Essential clusters.

Tip

To learn how to back up and restore data on TiDB Cloud Dedicated clusters, see Back Up and Restore TiDB Cloud Dedicated Data.

View the Backup page

On the Clusters page, click the name of your target cluster to go to its overview page.
Tip
You can use the combo box in the upper-left corner to switch between organizations, projects, and clusters.
In the left navigation pane, click Data > Backup.

Automatic backups

TiDB Cloud automatically backs up your cluster data, allowing you to restore data from a backup snapshot to minimize data loss in the event of a disaster.

Learn about the backup setting

Automatic backup settings vary between TiDB Cloud Starter clusters and TiDB Cloud Essential clusters, as shown in the following table:

Backup setting	TiDB Cloud Starter clusters	TiDB Cloud Essential clusters
Backup Cycle	Daily	Daily
Backup Retention	1 day	14 days
Backup Time	Fixed time	Configurable

Backup Cycle is the frequency at which backups are taken.
Backup Retention is the duration for which backups are retained. Expired backups cannot be restored.
Backup Time is the time when the backup starts to be scheduled. Note that the final backup time might fall behind the configured backup time.
- TiDB Cloud Starter clusters: the backup time is a randomly fixed time.
- TiDB Cloud Essential clusters: you can configure the backup time to every half an hour. The default value is a randomly fixed time.

Configure the backup setting

To set the backup time for a TiDB Cloud Essential cluster, perform the following steps:

Navigate to the Backup page of your cluster.
Click Backup Setting. This will open the Backup Setting window, where you can configure the automatic backup settings according to your requirements.
In Backup Time, schedule a start time for the daily cluster backup.
Click Confirm.

Restore

TiDB Cloud clusters offer restore functionality to help recover data in case of accidental loss or corruption.

Restore mode

TiDB Cloud supports snapshot restore and point-in-time restore for your cluster.

Snapshot Restore: restores your cluster from a specific backup snapshot.
Point-in-Time Restore (beta): restores your cluster to a specific time.
- TiDB Cloud Starter clusters: not supported.
- TiDB Cloud Essential clusters: restores to any time within the last 14 days, but not before the cluster creation time or after the current time minus one minute.

Restore destination

TiDB Cloud supports restoring in-place and restoring to a new cluster.

In-place restore

Restore to the current cluster will overwrite existing data. Note the following:

Existing connections will be terminated once the restore is started.
The cluster will be unavailable, and new connections will be blocked during the restore process.
Restore will affect tables in the mysql schema. Any changes to user credentials, permissions, or system variables will be reverted to their state at the backup time.

Restore to a new cluster

Create and restore to the new cluster. Note the following:

User credentials and permissions from the source cluster will not be restored to the new cluster.

Restore timeout

The restore process typically completes within a few minutes. If the restore takes longer than three hours, it is automatically canceled. The outcome of a canceled restore depends on the destination:

In-place restore: the cluster status changes from Restoring to Available, and the cluster becomes accessible.
Restore to a new cluster: the new cluster is deleted and the source cluster remains unchanged.

If the data is corrupted after a canceled restore and cannot be recovered, contact TiDB Cloud Support for assistance.

Perform the restore

To restore your TiDB Cloud cluster, follow these steps:

Navigate to the Backup page of your cluster.
Click Restore. The setting window displays.
In Restore Mode, you can choose to restore from a specific backup or any point in time.
To restore from a selected backup snapshot, take the following steps:
1. Click Snapshot Restore.
2. Select the backup snapshot you want to restore from.
To restore to a specific point in time for a TiDB Cloud Essential cluster, take the following steps:
1. Click Point-in-Time Restore.
2. Select the date and time you want to restore to.
In Destination, you can choose to restore to a new cluster or restore in-place.
To restore to a new cluster, take the following steps:
1. Click Restore to a New Cluster.
2. Enter a name for the new cluster.
3. Choose the cluster plan for the new cluster.
  - If you choose a TiDB Cloud Starter cluster and need more resources than the free quota, set a monthly spending limit.
  - If you choose a TiDB Cloud Essential cluster, set the minimum RCU and maximum RCU, and then configure advanced settings as needed.
To restore in-place, click In-place Restore.
Click Restore to begin the restore process.

Once the restore process begins, the cluster status changes to Restoring. The cluster will remain unavailable until the restore is complete and the status changes to Available.

Limitations

If a TiFlash replica is enabled, it will be unavailable for a period after the restore, because the data needs to be rebuilt in TiFlash.
Manual backups are not supported for TiDB Cloud Starter and TiDB Cloud Essential clusters.
Clusters with more than 1 TiB of data do not support restoring to new clusters by default. Contact TiDB Cloud Support for assistance with larger datasets.