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Maintenance Plan Wizard (Define Backup Database Full Task Page)

Use the Define Backup Database Full Task page to add a backup task to the maintenance plan. Backing up the database is important in case of system or hardware failure (or user errors) that cause the database to be damaged in some way, thus requiring a backed-up copy to be restored.

To start the Maintenance Plan Wizard

To change maintenance tasks

Options

  • Backup type
    Displays the type of backup to be performed.

  • Databases
    Specify the databases affected by this task.

    • All databases

      Generate a maintenance plan that runs this task against all SQL Server databases, except tempdb.

    • All system databases

      Generate a maintenance plan that runs this task against each of the SQL Server system databases except tempdb. No maintenance tasks are run against user-created databases.

    • All user databases

      Generate a maintenance plan that runs this task against all user-created databases. No maintenance tasks are run against the SQL Server system databases.

    • These specific databases

      Generate a maintenance plan that runs this task against only those databases that are selected. At least one database in the list must be selected if this option is chosen.

    • Ignore databases where the state is not online

      For a list of databases to be backed up, automatically skip databases where the state is not online. This allows the maintenance plan to back up all available databases without the backup process being interrupted by an offline database.

  • Backup component
    Select Database to back up the entire database. Select File and filegroups to back up only a portion of the database. If selected, provide the file or filegroup name. When multiple databases are selected in the Databases box, only specify Databases for the Backup components. To perform file or filegroup backups, create a task for each database.

  • Backup set will expire
    Specifies when the backup set for this backup can be overwritten. Select After and enter a number of days to expiration, or use the spin box. Select On and enter a date of expiration, or use the drop-down calendar.

  • Back up to
    Back up the database to disk or to tape. Only tape devices attached to the computer containing the database are available.

  • Back up database(s) across one or more files
    Click Add to open the Select Backup Destination dialog box, and provide one or more a disk location, or tape device.

    Click Remove to remove a file from the box.

    Click Contents to read the file header and display the current backup contents of the file.

  • If backup files exist
    Specify how to handle existing backups. Select Overwrite to remove the old content of a file or tape, and replace it with this new backup. Select Append to add the new backups after any existing backups in the file or on the tape.

  • Create a backup file for every database
    Create a backup file in the location specified in the folder box. One file is created for each database selected.

  • Create a sub-directory for each database
    Create a sub-directory under the specified disk directory that contains the database backup for each database being backed up as part of the maintenance plan.

    Important

    The sub-directory will inherit permissions from the parent directory. Restrict permissions to avoid unauthorized access.

  • Folder
    Specify the folder to contain the automatically created database files.

  • Backup file extension
    Specify the extension to use for the backup files. The default is .bak.

  • Verify backup integrity
    Verify that the backup set is complete and that all volumes are readable.

  • Set backup compression
    In SQL Server 2008 Enterprise (or later versions), select one the following backup compression values:

    Use the default server setting

    Click to use the server-level default.

    This default is set by the backup compression default server-configuration option. For information about how to view the current setting of this option, see How to: View or Change the backup compression default Option (SQL Server Management Studio).

    Compress backup

    Click to compress the backup, regardless of the server-level default.

    Important noteImportant
    By default, compression significantly increases CPU usage, and the additional CPU consumed by the compression process might adversely affect concurrent operations. Therefore, you might want to create low-priority compressed backups in a session whose CPU usage is limited by Resource Governor. For more information, see How to: Use Resource Governor to Limit CPU Usage by Backup Compression (Transact-SQL).

    Do not compress backup

    Click to create an uncompressed backup, regardless of the server-level default.

See Also

Reference