--use-memory

USAGE

The --use-memory option can be specified on the command-line when the --prepare option is specified:

$ sudo mariadb-backup --prepare \
   --use-memory=32G \
   --target-dir=/data/backups/full

DETAILS

The --use-memory option configures the amount of memory that mariadb-backup and mariabackup can allocate to prepare a backup, which occurs when the --prepare option is specified. The default value is 104857600 (100 MiB).

While preparing the backup, mariadb-backup and mariabackup use the allocated memory in the same way that InnoDB uses the InnoDB Buffer Pool during crash recovery. Therefore, for best performance, the value of the --use-memory option should be greater than or equal to the innodb_buffer_pool_size value from the server where the backup was created.

In MariaDB Enterprise Server 10.5 and later, mariadb-backup and mariabackup use memory very efficiently when preparing a backup, so it can be safe to set the --use-memory option to a smaller size than innodb_buffer_pool_size, but setting it to innodb_buffer_pool_size or larger can make the prepare finish sooner.

In MariaDB Enterprise Server 10.4 and before, mariadb-backup and mariabackup can require more memory to prepare a backup than InnoDB requires for crash recovery, so the --use-memory option might sometimes need to be set to a higher value than the server's innodb_buffer_pool_size.

MariaDB recommends testing a --use-memory value in your own environment to confirm that it provides acceptable performance.

When a backup is prepared on a running database server, a high --use-memory value can impact performance of the database. Therefore, MariaDB recommends preparing backups on a different system to avoid impacting the database server.

CHANGE HISTORY