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Backup Microsoft SQL Server
Components of a SQL Server Database
Before exploring each of the various options in backing up a SQL Server database, let's review how information is stored in one.A SQL Server database stores data in one or more database files. While many databases only use a single file to store data, there are good reasons sometimes to split your data among several files. As an example, if you need the extra performance, you can store tables that are frequently used in their own separate files. By placing those files on separate disks, you avoid contention for disk access. Or your database might be too large to fit on one disk volume of your server and so must use more than one file—a separate file on each disk volume. If many files are being used for the database, the files themselves are sometimes organized into separate file groups, with each group consisting of several individual files.
Each SQL Server database must also have at least one file for the transaction log, which stores all changes that are made to the database. If you are unfamiliar with the use of the SQL Server transaction log, please see my previous 10-Minute Solution, "Using SQL Server Recovery Models," for a more in-depth description.
SQL Server provides four different methods for backing up your database or Enterprise Manager:
- A full backup or a complete backup of your database.
- A file backup is used when your database is to large and will take too long, hence only sections are backed up.
- A backup of the active portion and truncates the inactive portion of the transaction log.
- A backup of only modified data since the previous complete backup.
- Using Enterprise Manager
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