Ever since the old MS-DOS days, the Windows OS family has supported a special ‘null device’ – NUL. Notice the single ‘L’. This is a ‘reserved’ device identifier which you can use as a path. The special thing about this null device (NUL) is that it essentially swallows whatever is sent to it.

NUL and SQL

So what does this have to do with let’s say SQL? Many of us use the null device to test raw backup throughput. The correct way to do this is to specify DISK = ‘NUL’ in the backup command. In that case, you will see an entry similar to the below in the error log, and no physical destination file will be created:

2014-09-20 21:47:43.890 Backup       Database backed up. Database: master, creation date(time): 2014/09/18(16:33:26), pages dumped: 459, first LSN: 234:304:73, last LSN: 234:352:1, number of dump devices: 1, device information: (FILE=1, TYPE=DISK: {‘nul’}). This is an informational message only. No user action is required.

Now, in some cases, you might accidentally or unknowingly type in NULL (with the double L) instead of NUL. What that does is actually end up with a physical file called NULL You can see proof of that here:

2014-09-20 21:47:03.480 Backup       Database backed up. Database: master, creation date(time): 2014/09/18(16:33:26), pages dumped: 460, first LSN: 234:208:128, last LSN: 234:280:1, number of dump devices: 1, device information: (FILE=1, TYPE=DISK: {‘C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL12.SQL14\MSSQL\Backup\null’}). This is an informational message only. No user action is required.

Conclusion

So if you are using the NUL device in your tests, make sure you spell it as NUL (without the double L!)

Have a good weekend!