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I received a set of data file, with .bak extension, and the non-technical guy told me that it's from MySQL database. Checking out how to import a SQL Server .bak file into MySQL and opening .mdf file , I suspect if it's really MYSQL, as there is one .mdf file in the list, which seems to me it's from SQL Server db.

My question is, (a) does MYSQL auto backup 4GB data file into .bak extension? (b) It's been 5yrs, is there new edition other than SQL Server 2008 Express, which I can use to try opening the .bak?

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twfx
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2 Answers2

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It sounds like your non-technical user is mistaken. It's probably a data backup from some edition of Microsoft SQL Server. You can download Microsoft SQL Server Express 2012 from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/editions/2012-editions/express.aspx

Microsoft SQL Server Express 2012 supports up to 10GB database size.

MySQL does not enforce any file extension for its backups. This is chosen by the user. But it is a common convention to use a .sql extension for MySQL backups.

This is what the initial part of a MySQL data dump looks like:

-- MySQL dump 10.13  Distrib 5.5.14, for osx10.6 (i386)
--
-- Host: huey    Database: test
-- ------------------------------------------------------
-- Server version   5.5.31-30.3-log

And then it continues, containing plaintext SQL statements to recreate and populate the tables and other objects (actually strictly speaking, it's not completely plaintext, but it is human-readable).

Bill Karwin
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MySQL backups are traditionally taken via MySQLdump. This outputs a plaintext file that could be named anything. If you open the file in a text editor, it should be easy to determine if it's MySQL or not.

alexphilipp
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