# Physical Backups

+ Full backup by using `Backup & Restore (BR)`
+ Results in `SST` files (key-value pairs)
+ `BR` is a distributed tool
+ `BR` utilizes `TiKV` nodes to perform the backups
+ Backup can be initiated by command-line or `SQL` statement
+ Compared with logical backups, physical backups is more suitable for **large data volumes** and **generally faster**
+ Available in `TiDB v3.1` and later
+ Backup type is **`Hot`**

```
$ ~!@tiup br backup@!~ db --db universe --pd 10.0.0.138:2379 --ratelimit 128 --storage file:///home/ubuntu/backup/
tiup is checking updates for component br ...
...
Detail BR log in /tmp/br.log.2022-11-01T08.00.07Z 
Database Backup <-----------------> 100.00%
Checksum <-------------------> 100.00%
[2022/11/01 08:00:09.126 +00:00] [INFO] [collector.go:69] ["Database Backup success summary"] 
  [total-ranges=9] [ranges-succeed=9] [ranges-failed=0] [backup-checksum=4.608471ms] [backup-fast-checksum=1.333159ms]
  [backup-total-ranges=9] [backup-total-regions=9] [total-take=1.19841461s] [backup-data-size(after-compressed)=17.56kB]
  [Size=17563] [BackupTS=437069967250423810] [total-kv=114] [total-kv-size=7.482kB] [average-speed=6.243kB/s]
```
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Advantage of Physical backup:
- Fast. Both in terms of backing up and restoring.

Disadvantage of physical backup:
- Results files are not human readable.
- Not being able to import into another database.

`BR` is a command-line tool or `SQL` statement for distributed backup and restoration of the `TiDB` cluster data. 

Compared with `Dumpling`, `BR` is more suitable for huge data volumes. `BR` only supports `TiDB v3.1` and later versions.