Using Full Recovery

Applies To: Forefront Client Security

Whenever you use Simple Recovery, you will lose some data in the event of a database failure. If the data contained in the MOM or SQL Server reporting databases are considered vital to your organization and losing even a small amount of data would cause problems, you can use Full Recovery to reduce the risk of data loss.

When you use Full Recovery, SQL Server uses transaction logs to keep track of changes that take place in the database between full or differential backups. In the event of a database failure, you can apply these logs after you restore the full and differential backups. If all transaction logs are available, the database can be restored up to the point of failure.

Using Full Recovery takes additional resources. SQL Server will use more processing and memory resources, and the log files should reside on a separate disk from the main database. A mirrored RAID 1 disk is preferred.

If your organizational requirements justify the additional cost associated with Full Recovery, you can set the necessary databases to Full Recovery.

When using Full Recovery, implement regular transaction log backups and keep them with your full and differential backups.

For more information about using Full Recovery, see Backup Under the Full Recovery Model in SQL Server 2005 Books Online (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=75168).