Dumb question possibly, but I'm fairly certain that I've seen something that allows me to do this, but I can't find it now.

Is it actually possible to restore a database from SQL 2008 R2 Standard onto an instance of 2008 R2 Express?

Reason I ask is we have a database that's being used on 2008 R2 Standard, we need to take a copy of this for some training. The training will be performed on a completely separate training network, which only has 2008 R2 Express available.

I know it can be done from Express to Standard by just restoring it as normal from a file etc, but can it be done the other way round?

I think it's a try it and see. You can run R2 and R2 express on the same machine, but backups are not normally backwards compatible. Do you not have a backup made from R2 express?

There is a much earlier version of it that was running on express, however it doesn't have most of the data, which is what's required in the training really.

MSSQL Express only supports up to 4GB databases - anything smaller than that and it should be able to do it. If it's bigger than 4GB you're SOOL.

Yeah it will be less than 4GB

R2 express has a 10GB limit anyway :p

Then there's no reason why you can't do it

As you can tell, my Microshaft experience is lacking nowadays in the world of unix/linux.

Ok, please ignore this entire thread. Told you the title was stupid.

The database I was trying to restore had actually come from 2012 so no wonder it didn't work. Would be nice if I was told this before wasting my time

From 2008 R2 Standard to 2008 R2 Express worked fine.