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Browsing Data from Before the Most Recent Full Backup
The browse operation provides you with a Browse Data Before option, which allows you to control the end point of the browse retrieval process (index search). You can use this to restore the most recent data up to some date threshold. The Browse Data Before date causes the search process to begin with the most recent full backup and end with the backup that occurred just prior to the specified date.
The specifications for both the Browse Data Before option includes not only the date, but the time-of-day (i.e., hours and minutes) as well.
Specifying the time is necessary when isolating a backup on a date on which two or more backups occurred. (Note that this condition can occur even if backups are scheduled only once a day. For example, someone may have launched a backup using the Run Immediately option in addition to a scheduled backup. Also, depending on the size of a backup and the time it is scheduled to begin, a backup can start on one date and complete on the next, since the backup need only span 12:00 midnight.)
In determining whether to include a backup in a search, the iDataAgent uses the time that a backup completes. The Browse Data Before option causes the system to end its browse search using the most recent backup that completed before the specified date and time.
In the browses described previously, the searches are bounded by the most recent full backup. There may be times, however, when you want to browse data that is older than the most recent full backup. One way of accessing that data is to specify a Browse Data Before date that pre-dates the full backup. Remember, the Browse Data Before date establishes the ending point of the search. Consequently, using a Browse Data Before date that pre-dates the most recent full backup starts the search in the previous full backup cycle. This is only valid, of course, if the data in that full backup cycle has not expired.