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Sidster
Starting Member
7 Posts |
 Posted - 2008-08-28 : 03:00:29
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| Hi - I'm one of those "involuntary DBA's" at my company and am trying to learn the general concepts of databases and db administration at the same time.I support an application that runs on MSDE and SQL Server 2000/05/Express. My question is this: Is it necessary (a best practice) to backup all files in the Data folder (i.e. Master, Model, etc.) or is it safe to backup just our application's db (which consists of one mdf and one ldf file)?Keep in mind any worst case scenario where, after rebuilding a server and installing the same instance name, we would basically drop in the two files after stopping the service. Does this corrupt the new master MDF file in any way? Should I be running any procedures to synch the master db with the restored application db?The db size is relatively small (under 2GB) so we are advising our customers to stop the service and backup the two files every night.Thank you in advance,Sid. |
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GilaMonster
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker
4507 Posts |
Posted - 2008-08-28 : 04:15:22
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| You should back up the system databases (master, model, msdb) the same way you back up the user databases.Both should be backed up using SQL's backup function, not by backing up the mdf and ldf files.--Gail ShawSQL Server MVP |
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sodeep
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker
7174 Posts |
Posted - 2008-08-28 : 14:47:35
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| "The db size is relatively small (under 2GB) so we are advising our customers to stop the service and backup the two files every night."You don't have to stop service. |
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Sidster
Starting Member
7 Posts |
Posted - 2008-08-29 : 00:40:50
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| Thank you for your help.Can I trouble you to explain why we should be backing up everything?Sid. |
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tkizer
Almighty SQL Goddess
38200 Posts |
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tkizer
Almighty SQL Goddess
38200 Posts |
Posted - 2008-08-29 : 01:17:46
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| Also, your current backup scheme is known as cold backups. This causes downtime and is unnecessary. Hot backups are recommended and cause no downtime. We use hot backups for several mission critical databases that are expected to be up 99.999% of the time each year. We measure downtime in a year in the minutes.Tara KizerMicrosoft MVP for Windows Server System - SQL Serverhttp://weblogs.sqlteam.com/tarad/Subscribe to my blog |
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tkizer
Almighty SQL Goddess
38200 Posts |
Posted - 2008-08-29 : 01:23:58
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| One last thing, if your customers have any SQL Server knowledge, they will know that you don't have much experience with SQL Server if you are recommending that they stop the service each night and copy the database files. They might not think very highly of the product if they don't think you have the knowledge on the backend. There are plenty of vendors out there like this, don't be one of them!Tara KizerMicrosoft MVP for Windows Server System - SQL Serverhttp://weblogs.sqlteam.com/tarad/Subscribe to my blog |
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BP-backup master, model, etc. or no?