SQL Server Backup and Restore - Simple Talk

Base backup
Chapter 7: Differential Backup and Restore
As discussed earlier, just as we can't take log backups without first taking a full backup
of a database, so we also can't take a differential backup without taking a full base
backup. Any differential backup is useless without a base. Listing 7-2 performs the
base full backup for our DatabaseForDiffBackups database and stores it in the
C:\SQLBackups\Chapter7 folder. Again, feel free to modify this path as appropriate f
or your system.
USE [master]
GO
BACKUP DATABASE [DatabaseForDiffBackups]
TO DISK = N'C:\SQLBackups\Chapter7\DatabaseForDiffBackups_Full_Native.bak'
WITH NAME = N'DatabaseForDiffBackups-Full Database Backup', STATS = 10
GO
Listing 7-2: Base full backup for DatabaseForDiffBackups.
We are not going to worry about the execution time for this full backup, so once the
backup has completed successfully, you can close this script without worrying about the
output. However, we will take a look at the backup size though, which should come out
to just over 20 MB. We can take a look at how our differential backup file sizes compare,
as we pump more data into the database.
Taking Differential Backups
As per our usual scheme, we're going to demonstrate how to take differential backups the
"GUI way," in SSMS, and by using native T-SQL Backup commands. In Chapter 8, you'll
see how to perform differential backups, as part of a complete and scheduled backup
routine using the Red Gate SQL Backup tool.
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