FastBCP 1.6: Export Tables from SQL Server Backups
Summary
ARPE's FastBCP 1.6 exports a table directly from a SQL Server .bak backup to Parquet without restoring, enabling fast migrations and data lake ingestion. The post details performance benchmarks (e.g., 320 GB backup, cold open 2m29s, subsequent exports ~0.3s, 24 threads exporting a 175M-row table in ~29.6s) and discusses memory usage, limitations, and use cases, plus a path to load Parquet into SQL Server or PostgreSQL via FastTransfer.