Importing and Restoring Backups

Import backups from external storage and restore data to your database.

Importing from filesystem

Import previously exported backups:

# Import backup to target database
ydb tools restore -p .backups/collections/production_backups_restored -i /backup/exports/production_backups_export

# Import specific backup into a collection
ydb tools restore -p .backups/collections/emergency_restore -i /backup/exports/backup_20250601

Importing from S3

ydb import s3 \
  --s3-endpoint storage.yandexcloud.net \
  --bucket my-backup-bucket \
  --item src=backups/production_backups,dst=.backups/collections/production_backups

Restoring data

After importing backups to the cluster, restore the data:

RESTORE production_backups;

Disaster recovery workflow

  1. Import full backup: Import the base full backup first
  2. Import incrementals: Import each incremental backup in order
  3. Execute RESTORE: Run the RESTORE command to apply the backup chain
# Step 1: Import full backup
ydb tools restore -p .backups/collections/recovery/20250821141425Z_full -i /backup/full_20250821

# Step 2: Import incrementals in order
ydb tools restore -p .backups/collections/recovery/20250822070000Z_incremental -i /backup/inc_20250822

# Step 3: Restore
ydb yql -s "RESTORE recovery;"

Next steps