Managed Backups in CockroachDB Standard Clusters

are automated backups of CockroachDB Cloud clusters that are stored by Cockroach Labs in cloud storage. By default, Cockroach Labs takes and retains managed backups in all Cloud clusters. In Standard and Advanced clusters, you can adjust the default managed backup settings to meet your organization’s disaster recovery requirements. This page describes managed backups in Standard clusters. You can configure the following:

The frequency of the backups to meet requirements.
The retention of the backups to set how long Cockroach Labs retains the backups.

In addition to managed backups, you can take manual backups to your own storage bucket with self-managed backups. Refer to the page.

Managed backup settings

Configurable managed backup settings are available in all of CockroachDB on Standard and Advanced clusters.

Standard clusters take a combination of full and incremental backups in order to meet the set frequency. The type of managed backup the cluster takes is not configurable. Each incremental backup is dependent on the last full backup, which has an effect on the managed backups that you can restore in the set retention period. Full backups in the cluster will be deleted when they reach the set retention period. At this point, any incremental backups dependent on the deleted full backup will also be deleted. The Cloud Console will not list any backups that are beyond the set retention period, or incremental backups that cannot be restored. For instructions on how to view and configure managed backup settings, use one of the following:

Cloud Console.
Cloud API.
CockroachDB Cloud Terraform provider.

Frequency

You can configure how frequently Cockroach Labs takes backups, which will determine the cluster’s . You can set backup frequency to one of the following options:

5 minutes
10 minutes
15 minutes
30 minutes
1 hour (default)
4 hours
24 hours

Retention

You can set your retention duration once. After you have adjusted the retention, the duration will only apply to new backups. The available retention options are:

2 days
7 days
30 days (default)
90 days
365 days

You’ll be able to modify the retention setting once for a cluster. To modify the setting again, contact the . For details on the storage costs of managed backups, refer to the page. When a cluster is deleted, Cockroach Labs will retain the managed backups for for the configured retention time, after which the backups will be deleted. If a customer’s agreement with Cockroach Labs has terminated, all managed backups will be retained for a maximum of 30 days and then deleted. If a backup’s retention time was set to less than 30 days, Cockroach Labs will retain the managed backups for the configured retention time, after which the backups will be deleted. To restore a backup from a deleted cluster, you must contact the .

Upgrades and downgrades

If you have upgraded from a Basic cluster to a Standard cluster, the existing backup schedules will still apply, but you can then configure the frequency and retention of future managed backups in the Standard cluster. If you have downgraded from a Standard cluster to a Basic cluster, existing managed backups will be retained for the configured retention duration. The default managed backups in Basic clusters will be taken every 24 hours and have a 30-day retention.

Considerations

Every backup will be stored entirely in a single region, which is chosen at random from the list of cluster regions at the time of cluster creation. This region will be used indefinitely to store backups.
You can perform a cross-cluster restore across clusters in the same organization. However, the target cluster must also be a Standard cluster and be completely wiped of data.
You cannot restore a backup of a multi-region database into a single-region database.

Required permissions to restore managed backups

To restore a managed backup successfully in CockroachDB Cloud, you must have the appropriate on both the source and destination clusters:

You must have either the or role on the destination cluster, or at the . Without one of these roles, the restore job will fail.
You must also have either the or role on the source cluster (the cluster from which the backup was taken), or at the . If you do not have the required permissions on the source cluster, the restore will fail.

Organization-level permissions take precedence over cluster-specific permissions. If you have the appropriate role at the organization level, you are authorized to perform restore operations on all clusters within that organization.

Cloud Console

View backups

Click on Backup and Restore in the Data section of the left-side navigation to access the Backup Recovery page. This page displays a list of your cluster backups. Use the calendar drop-down to view all backups taken on a certain date. For each backup, the following details display:

Data From: The date and time the backup was taken.
Status: The backup’s status, In Progress or Complete.
Expires In: The remaining number of days Cockroach Labs will retain the backup.
Restore: Restore a particular cluster backup, click Restore in the corresponding row.

Modify backup settings

Following a change to the backup frequency or retention setting, the cluster will take a full backup immediately, which may impact CPU usage on the cluster. If you are disabling managed backups, the cluster will not take a backup following the change. Before modifying cluster backup settings, review details on backup settings for Standard and Advanced clusters. Click on Settings and the Backup Settings module will open. The Enable backups switch allows you to enable or disable backups. To modify the frequency of backups, click on the dropdown under Schedule backups every. This will display the following options to select:

5 minutes
10 minutes
15 minutes
30 minutes
1 hour (default)
4 hours
24 hours

To modify the retention of backups, click on Retain backups for. This will display the following options to select:

2 days
7 days
30 days (default)
90 days
365 days

You’ll be able to modify the retention setting once for a cluster. To modify the setting again, contact the .

Restore a cluster

Before a cluster can be restored from a managed backup, the destination cluster must be completely wiped of data. A cluster restore job fails if the destination cluster contains any databases/schemas/tables.

Performing a restore will cause your cluster to be unavailable for the duration of the restore. All current data is deleted, and the cluster will be restored to the state it was in at the time of the backup. To restore a cluster:

Find the cluster backup on the Backup Recovery page.
Click Restore for the cluster you want to restore. The Restore cluster module displays with backup details.
You can restore a backup to the same cluster or a different Standard cluster. The target cluster must already be created. Select the desired target cluster under Restore to cluster and click Continue
Review the restore details then click Restore.

Cloud API

You can use the to view and modify managed backup settings, view managed backups, or restore clusters from a managed backup.

The associated with the secret key must have the role.

Get information on backup settings

To retrieve information about a specific cluster, make a GET request to the /v1/clusters/{cluster_id}/backups-config endpoint.

curl --request GET \
--url https://cockroachlabs.cloud/api/v1/clusters/{cluster_id}/backups-config \
--header "Authorization: Bearer {secret_key}"

Set the following:

is the unique ID of the cluster. This ID is written in a UUID format similar to f78b7feb-b6cf-4396-9d7f-494982d7d81e and is returned by a . You can also find the cluster ID in the Cloud Console, in the URL of the single cluster overview page: https://cockroachlabs.cloud/cluster/{your_cluster_id}/overview.
is your API key. Refer to for more details.

If the request is successful, the API will return details about the managed backup settings:

{
  "enabled": true,
  "retention_days": 30,
  "frequency_minutes": 240
}

shows whether managed backups are enabled or disabled.
is how often the managed backup will run in minutes.
is the number of days Cockroach Labs will retain the managed backup in storage.

Modify backup settings on a cluster

Following a change to the backup frequency or retention setting, the cluster will take a full backup immediately, which may impact CPU usage on the cluster. If you are disabling managed backups, the cluster will not take a backup following the change. Before modifying cluster backup settings, review details on backup settings for Standard and Advanced clusters. To configure the frequency and retention of managed backups, send a PUT request to the /v1/clusters/{cluster_id}/backups-config endpoint.

curl --request PUT \
--url https://cockroachlabs.cloud/api/v1/clusters/{cluster_id}/backups-config \
--header "Authorization: Bearer {secret_key}" \
--data '{"enabled": true, "frequency_minutes": 30, "retention_days": 2}'

Set the following:

is the unique ID of the cluster. This ID is written in a UUID format similar to f78b7feb-b6cf-4396-9d7f-494982d7d81e and is returned by a . You can also find the cluster ID in the Cloud Console, in the URL of the single cluster overview page: https://cockroachlabs.cloud/cluster/{your_cluster_id}/overview.
controls whether managed backups are enabled or disabled. If you are disabling managed backups, you cannot set backup frequency or retention. Possible values are: true, false.
determines how often the managed backup will run in minutes. Possible values are: 5, 10, 15, 30, 60, 240 (4 hours), 1440 (24 hours).
sets the number of days Cockroach Labs will retain the managed backup in storage. You can change retention_days for the cluster once (whether in the Cloud API or Cloud Console). Possible values are: 2, 7, 30, 90, 365. If has previously been modified (in the Cloud API or Cloud Console), you receive the message “cluster already has a retention policy set, open a support ticket to change it”. To modify the setting again, contact the .
is your API key. Refer to for more details.

If the request is successful, the client recieves an empty HTTP 200 OK status response.

View managed backups

To view a list of managed backups on a cluster with timestamps and their respective IDs, send a GET request to the /v1/clusters/{cluster_id}/backups endpoint:

curl --request GET \
--url https://cockroachlabs.cloud/api/v1/clusters/{cluster_id}/backups \
--header "Authorization: Bearer {secret_key}" \

If the request is successful, the client recieves a JSON response listing backups with their unique . The timestamp describes the system time of the cluster when the backup was created:

{
  "backups": [
    {
      "id": "example-157a-4b04-8f72-3179369a50d9",
      "as_of_time": "2025-07-25T15:45:00Z"
    },
    {
      "id": "example-c090-429c-9f84-2b1297f5de89",
      "as_of_time": "2025-07-25T15:35:32Z"
    },
    {
      "id": "example-4e41-44ec-926a-0cc368efdea2",
      "as_of_time": "2025-07-25T15:00:00Z"
    },
    {
      "id": "example-3c67-4822-b7b9-90c2d8cc06a3",
      "as_of_time": "2025-07-25T14:56:15Z"
    },
    {
      "id": "example-abef-4191-aa98-36a019da97c2",
      "as_of_time": "2025-07-25T14:52:05.637170Z"
    }
  ],
  "pagination": null

Restore from a managed backup

You can use the /v1/clusters/{destination_cluster_id}/restores endpoint to restore the contents of a managed backup to a specified destination cluster. On Standard and Basic clusters, managed backups can only be restored at the cluster level into the same cluster or a different cluster of the same plan type in the same organization.

Restore a cluster

Before a cluster can be restored from a managed backup, the destination cluster must be completely wiped of data. A cluster restore operation fails if the destination cluster contains any databases/schemas/tables. To restore a cluster to a recent managed backup, send a POST request to the /v1/clusters/{cluster_id}/restores endpoint of "type": "CLUSTER":

curl --request POST \
--url https://cockroachlabs.cloud/api/v1/clusters/{cluster_id}/restores \
--header "Authorization: Bearer {secret_key}" \
--json '{
    "source_cluster_id": "{cluster_id}",
    "type": "CLUSTER"
}'

By default, the restore job uses the most recent backup stored within the last 7 days on the cluster specified in source_cluster_id. To restore a specific backup, include the backup_id field and specify a backup ID from the managed backups list:

curl --request POST \
--url https://cockroachlabs.cloud/api/v1/clusters/{cluster_id}/restores \
--header "Authorization: Bearer {secret_key}" \
--json '{
    "backup_id": "example-2d25-4a64-8172-28af7a0d41cc",
    "type": "CLUSTER"
}'

To restore a cluster backup into a different cluster, ensure that the destination cluster is created with the same plan type (Basic, Standard, or Advanced) and contains no databases/schemas/tables. Send the restore request to the destination cluster ID, specifying the ID of the source cluster as source_cluster_id.

curl --request POST \
--url https://cockroachlabs.cloud/api/v1/clusters/{destination_cluster_id}/restores \
--header "Authorization: Bearer {secret_key}" \
--json '{
    "source_cluster_id": "{source_cluster_id}",
    "type": "CLUSTER"
}'

You can specify additional options for the restore job in the restore_opts object. For more information, see the API endpoint documentation. If the request is successful, the client recieves a JSON response that describes the request operation:

{
  "id": "example-aeb7-4daa-9e2c-eda541765f8a",
  "backup_id": "example-2d25-4a64-8172-28af7a0d41cc",
  "status": "PENDING",
  "created_at": "2025-07-25T16:45:14.064208710Z",
  "type": "CLUSTER",
  "completion_percent": 1
}

Get status of a restore job

To view the status of a restore job using the cloud API, send a GET request to the /v1/clusters/{cluster_id}/restores/{restore_id} endpoint where restore_id is the id from the JSON response:

curl --request GET \
--url https://cockroachlabs.cloud/api/v1/clusters/{cluster_id}/restores/{restore_id} \
--header "Authorization: Bearer {secret_key}"

If the request is successful, the client recieves a response containing JSON describing the status of the specified request operation:

{
  "id": "example-aeb7-4daa-9e2c-eda541765f8a",
  "backup_id": "example-2d25-4a64-8172-28af7a0d41cc",
  "status": "SUCCESS",
  "created_at": "2025-07-25T16:45:14.064208710Z",
  "type": "CLUSTER",
  "completion_percent": 1
}

CockroachDB Cloud Terraform provider

You can use the to specify managed backup settings in Standard clusters. In your main.tf Terraform configuration file, use the backup_config attribute on the cockroach_cluster resource to modify the settings of managed backups. For example:

resource "cockroach_cluster" "standard" {
  name           = "cockroach-standard"
  cloud_provider = "GCP"
  plan           = "STANDARD"
  serverless = {
    usage_limits = {
      provisioned_virtual_cpus = 2
    }
    upgrade_type = "AUTOMATIC"
  }
  regions = [
    {
      name = "us-east1"
    }
  ]
  delete_protection = false
  backup_config = {
    enabled           = true
    frequency_minutes = 60
    retention_days    = 30
  }
}

Set the following for the backup_config attribute:

enabled controls whether managed backups are enabled or disabled. If you modify the retention_days setting even when managed backups are disabled, this will use the one possible change for retention_days. Possible values for the enabled setting are: true or false.
frequency_minutes determines how often the managed backup will run in minutes. Possible values are: 5, 10, 15, 30, 60, 240 (4 hours), 1440 (24 hours).
retention_days sets the number of days Cockroach Labs will retain the managed backup in storage. You can change retention_days for the cluster once (whether in Terraform, the Cloud API, or the Cloud Console). Possible values are: 2, 7, 30, 90, 365. Note that:
- If the initial value of the retention_days attribute is the default value 30, you’ll be able to modify the backup retention setting once more.
- If the initial value is not the default, you will not be able to modify retention_days again. You can refrain from including retention_days in the Terraform configuration and instead manage the retention in the Cloud Console. To modify the setting again, contact the . For more details on modifying retention_days, refer to the Updating Backup Retention documentation in the Terraform provider for CockroachDB Cloud Repository.

​Managed backup settings

​Frequency

​Retention

​Upgrades and downgrades

​Considerations

​Required permissions to restore managed backups

​Cloud Console

​View backups

​Modify backup settings

​Restore a cluster

​Cloud API

​Get information on backup settings

​Modify backup settings on a cluster

​View managed backups

​Restore from a managed backup

​Restore a cluster

​Get status of a restore job

​CockroachDB Cloud Terraform provider

Managed backup settings

Frequency

Retention

Upgrades and downgrades

Considerations

Required permissions to restore managed backups

Cloud Console

View backups

Modify backup settings

Restore a cluster

Cloud API

Get information on backup settings

Modify backup settings on a cluster

View managed backups

Restore from a managed backup

Restore a cluster

Get status of a restore job

CockroachDB Cloud Terraform provider