Restoring a multistreamed SQL Server backup with fewer devices than it was backed up with

In your recovery environment, you may have fewer drives available for restores than you used for backups. In this situation, SQL Server times out while it waits for the additional backup images to be mounted. To prevent this time out, modify the recovery batch file to specify the number of drives that are available for restore.

Consider, for example, if you had performed a backup using 5 drives, and only 2 are available for recovery. In the recovery batch file, change the stripes parameter from STRIPES 5 to STRIPES 2. This change causes SQL Server to request two backup images at a time until all five images are restored.