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Percona Software for MongoDB Documentation

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Make a logical backup

Before you start

  1. Install and set up Percona Backup for MongoDB
  2. Check that pbm agent is running with the pbm status command

  3. Check that all pbm-agents and PBM CLI have the same version. Otherwise we cannot guarantee successful backups and data consistency in them.

    To check the version, run the following commands:

Procedure

Warning

Sharded time series collections are not supported. If you use them in your deployment, you won’t be able to make a backup.

To make a backup, run the following command:

$ pbm backup --type=logical

Logical backup is the default one so you can bypass the --type flag.

During logical backups, Percona Backup for MongoDB copies the actual data to the backup storage.

Starting with version 2.0.0, Percona Backup for MongoDB stores data in the new multi-file format where each collection has a separate file. The oplog is stored for all namespaces regardless whether this is a full or selective backup.

Multi-format is now the default data format since it allows selective restore. Note, however, that you can make only full restores from backups made with earlier versions of Percona Backup for MongoDB.

Next steps

List backups Make a restore from a logical backup Make a point-in-time recovery

Last update: July 16, 2025
Created: July 16, 2025