When restoring a SQL Server DB from dump files on a remote NAS share, copy before restore or restore directly? My team is considering backing up all DBs to an Isilon NAS and we're conducting time trials to see if the restore time from the NAS is quicker than performing a copy to local storage before restoring. Besides considering the throughput of the source and target storage and the network link, what else should we consider before making a selection? Thank you!
In my experience, there has been nothing to gain by copying files locally before carrying out the restore. If the target of the restore has sufficient IO capacity, you should be able to restore from the network share at very close to the speed of a file copy.