My question is similar to this question but in my case I am wondering can two of the SAME version of TFS (2013) share a data layer. I cannot find any documentation stating that it is ok or, alternatively, that it will cause issues.
I am wondering if this would be a viable option for testing setting up a new instance of the server but I do not know what issues having two TFS instances connected to the same data layer / database may cause (or if its even possible).
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The documentation is here https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/server/install/install-2013/config-tfs-advanced?view=tfs-2013 and what you are talking about is the "Server Database Label". It mentions:
In Server Database Label, type a label string, which is then embedded into all three of the default database names.
This technique enables you to use a single instance of SQL Server to host multiple configuration databases.
As other have mentioned, this might not be a good idea for a test environment though.
The immediate answer to your question is, "Yes". However, it's not what you want. You can configure multiple application tiers pointing to the same database; that's how you enable high availability/failover scenarios.
For testing purposes, you should create a second set of infrastructure.