I recently came across a question on the #sqlhelp Twitter feed that I thought was interesting. The question pertains to whether or not SQL Server zero outs the log file when doing a restore on an existing database.
We already know that even with instant file initialization, the log file is always zeroed out upon creation or file growth. But what about a restore? Given the restore is a page by page copy of the data, shouldn’t it just over lay the existing file?