SQL Server Backup and Restore - Simple Talk

Chapter 8: Database Backup and Restore with SQL Backup Pro
There are two options offered below the path and name settings in the Backup location
section that allow us to "clean up" our backup files, depending on preferences.
• Overwrite existing backup files… Overwrite any backup files in that location that
share the same name.
• Delete existing backup files… Remove any files that are more than x days old, or
remove all but the latest x files. We also have the option of cleaning these files up
before we start a new backup. This is helpful if the database backup files are quite large
and wouldn't fit on disk if room was not cleared beforehand. However, be sure that any
backups targeted for removal have first been safely copied to another location .
The top drop-down box of this screen offers the options to split or mirror a backup
file (which we will cover at the end of this chapter). The Network copy location
section allows us to copy the finished backup to a second network location, after it has
completed. This is a good practice, and you also get the same options of cleaning up the
files on your network storage. What you choose here doesn't have to match what you
chose for your initial backup location; for example, you can store just one day of backups
on a local machine, but three days on your network location.
Backup compression and encryption
Step 4 is where we configure some of the most useful features of SQL Backup, including
backup compression. We'll compare how SQL Backup compression performs against
the native uncompressed and native compressed backups that we investigated in
previous chapters.
For the time being, let's focus on the Backup processing portion of this screen, where we
configure backup compression and backup encryption.
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