Back Up and Restore TiDB Cloud Starter or Essential Data

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

View the Backup page

1. On the My TiDB page, click the name of your target TiDB Cloud Starter or Essential instance to go to its overview page.

   Tip

   If you are in multiple organizations, use the combo box in the upper-left corner to switch to your target organization first.

2. In the left navigation pane, click Data > Backup.

Automatic backups

TiDB Cloud automatically backs up your 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 instances and TiDB Cloud Essential instances, as shown in the following table:

• 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.

  • For a free TiDB Cloud Starter instance, the backup retention is 1 day.
  • For a TiDB Cloud Starter (with spending limit > 0) or TiDB Cloud Essential instance, you can configure the backup retention to any value between 1 and 30 days. The default retention is 14 days.

• 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.

  • For a free TiDB Cloud Starter instance, the backup time is a randomly fixed time.
  • For a TiDB Cloud Starter (with spending limit > 0) or TiDB Cloud Essential instance, 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 instance, perform the following steps:

1. Navigate to the Backup page of your TiDB Cloud Starter or Essential instance.

2. Click Backup Setting. This will open the Backup Setting window, where you can configure the automatic backup settings according to your requirements.

3. In Backup Time, schedule a start time for the daily backup.

4. Click Confirm.

Restore

TiDB Cloud 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 TiDB Cloud Starter or Essential instance.

• Snapshot Restore: restores your TiDB Cloud Starter or Essential instance from a specific backup snapshot.

• Point-in-Time Restore (beta): restores your TiDB Cloud Essential instance to a specific time.

  • TiDB Cloud Starter instances: not supported.
  • TiDB Cloud Essential instances: restores to any time within the backup retention, but not earlier than the TiDB Cloud Essential instance creation time or later than one minute before the current time.

Restore destination

TiDB Cloud supports restoring data to a new TiDB Cloud Starter or Essential instance.

Restore timeout

The restore process typically completes within a few minutes. If the restore takes longer than three hours, it is automatically canceled and the new TiDB Cloud Starter or Essential instance is deleted, while the source instance remains unchanged.

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

Restore to a new TiDB Cloud Starter or Essential instance

To restore your data to a new TiDB Cloud Starter or Essential instance, take the following steps:

1. Navigate to the Backup page of your TiDB Cloud Starter or Essential instance.

2. Click Restore.

3. 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 instance, take the following steps:

   1. Click Point-in-Time Restore.
   2. Select the date and time you want to restore to.

4. Enter a name for the new instance.

5. Update the capacity as needed.

   • For a TiDB Cloud Starter instance, if you need more resources than the free quota, set a monthly spending limit.
   • For a TiDB Cloud Essential instance, set the minimum RCU and maximum RCU, and then configure advanced settings as needed.

6. Click Restore to begin the restore process.

Once the restore process begins, the TiDB Cloud Starter or Essential instance status changes to Restoring. The TiDB Cloud Starter or Essential instance 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 instances.
• A TiDB Cloud Starter or TiDB Cloud Essential instance with more than 1 TiB of data does not support restoring to a new instance by default. Contact TiDB Cloud Support for assistance with larger datasets.