SQL Server Backup and Recovery Best Practices

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If you are looking for SQL Server backup and recovery best practices then this article is for you. The best and the easiest way to backup and restore your databases is to useSqlBak. If you are reading this article it means that you already know the crucial role of SQL Server database backups. Scheduled backups are the best way to protect your SQL Server database from the disaster. Bellow you can find a short list of SQL Server backup and recovery best practices.

SQL Server Backup and Recovery Best Practices

Check all points bellow and we hope you will discoversomething new. So let’s start.

Keep on the different physical storages your backups and database files

As you can see, this isn’t agood idea to store SQL Server database backups anddatabase files on the same physical drive. The reason is that if the failure occurs and your physical drive will be corrupted, you will lose both, your SQL Server database backups and your database.

That is why this is the first tip in our SQL Server backup and recovery best practices. Store your SQL Server database backup in a different place, as far as possible. At first glance, it may seem simple but if you neglect it, you will lose a lot of data.

Backup your database according to the schedule

The next tip in our SQL Server backup and recovery best practices is a backup schedule in order to protect your databases. It is crucial to creating a backup schedule and using it becauseafter some period of time your backups get out of date the data loss risk is increasing.

Verify your backups by restoring them on a test server

Probably you are sure that your database is safe after the backup process has finished successfully. But you should remember about restore process, to verify your SQL Server database backups. Without passing full recovering process, you can not be sure, that you have good backups and your SQL Server database is protected.

So test restoration of your SQL Server database is another tip in our SQL Server backup and recovery best practices.

Test your recovery strategies

The next tip according to our SQL Server backup and recovery best practices list is in regard to recovery strategies.

Assume that you are working in a big company, what will you do if the database failure occurs? How much time will you need to restore your SQL Server database to working state? That is why you need, time to time practice to restore your database on a test server, according to yourfull backup scenarios.

During backup process apply all known verification options

Here is one more tip in our SQL Server backup and recovery best practices is that it is crucial to apply all known verification options during the backup. Using such options allows you to be sure that all your SQL Server database backups are created in the proper way.

Perform a full backup of your SQL Server database every day

We highly recommend you to make afull backup of your SQL Server database every day. This is the best way to protect your database and prevent any kind of data loss. So this is another tipfrom our SQL Server backup and recovery best practices list

To that point, we are going to add one more importantthing like choosing a recovery model. It will be our first line of protection against data loss. Let’s say that if you can accept to lose about 30 or 60 minutes of your work, then you can use a simple recovery model . But you have to remember, that you can make only full backups under a simple recovery model .

Performing differential database backups more frequently

In the previous point, we have discussed that it is crucial to perform a full backup every day. But if you decided to ignore that, remember that you should makedifferential backup more frequently than a full backup. This is another tip of SQL Server backup and recovery best practices list.

You need to keep in mind that differential backups require less time to be made and less space to be stored. Differential backups contain only information that has been creating since the last full backup. Also, it is necessary to admit, that now you should restore two files if the failure occurs. Which make a recovering process more complicated.

Performing transaction log backups even more frequently than differential backup

The following tip in our SQL Server backup and recovery best practiceslist is creatingtransaction logbackups more frequently than differential backups.

Transaction logs contain all the recent changes that have occurred in your SQL Server database. With the help oftransaction logbackups, you will be able to restore your database to a specific point in time. This is its biggest advantage!

The frequency of every new transaction log backup depends on information that is changed in your database. If the changes occur frequently you can performa transaction log backupevery 10 minutes. Another way youcan make transaction log backup every 30 or even 60 minutes.

Don’t forget to backup system databases

Backup system databases from time to time this is the last tip in our SQL Server backup and recovery best practices list in this article.

Of course, you can think that following all points above is enough to keep your database safe nad sound. But you should remember, that backup strategy isn’t complete if you don’t have a backup plan for SQL Server system databases like master, msdb and model. Backup these databases on a regular basis is crucial because that contain all SQL Server system configuration and SQL Server job information. All these information will be required during the total system restoration process.