SQL Server Backup and Restore - Simple Talk

Chapter 9: File and Filegroup Backup and Restore
SQL Backup file backups
Let's take a quick look at how to capture both types of file backup, full and differential,
via the Red Gate SQL Backup tool. I assume basic familiarity with the tool, based on the
coverage provided in the previous chapter, and so focus only on aspects of the process
that are different from what has gone before, with database backups. We're going to take
a look at file backups using SQL Backup scripts only, and not via the SQL Backup GUI.
There are a couple of reasons for this:
• the version of SQL Backup (6.4) that was used in this book did not support differential
file backups via the GUI
• assuming that, if you worked through Chapter 8, you are now comfortable using the
basic SQL Backup functionality, so you don't need to see both methods.
To get started, we'll need a new sample database on which to work. We can simply
adapt the database creation script in Listing 9-6 to create a new, identically-structured
database, called DatabaseForFileBackup_SB and then use Listing 9-7 to create the
tables and insert the initial row. Alternatively, the script to create the database and tables,
and insert the initial data, is provided ready-made (DatabaseForFileBackup_SB.sql) in
code download for this book, at http://www.simple-talk.com/RedGateBooks/
ShawnMcGehee/SQLServerBackupAndRestore_Code.zip.
SQL Backup full file backups
Having created the sample database and tables, and loaded some initial data, let's jump
straight in and take a look at the script to perform full file backups of both the PRIMARY
and SECONDARY data files, as shown in Listing 9-12.
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