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Backing Up and Restoring Databases in SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server enables you to back up and restore your databases. The SQL Server backup and restore component provides an important safeguard for protecting critical data stored in SQL Server databases. A well-planned backup and restore strategy helps protect databases against data loss caused by a variety of failures. Test your strategy by restoring a set of backups and then recovering your database to prepare you to respond effectively to a disaster.

A copy of data that can be used to restore and recover the data is called a backup. Backups let you restore data after a failure. With good backups, you can recover from many failures, such as:

  • Media failure.

  • User errors, for example, dropping a table by mistake.

  • Hardware failures, for example, a damaged disk drive or permanent loss of a server.

  • Natural disasters.

Additionally, backups of a database are useful for routine administrative purposes, such as copying a database from one server to another, setting up database mirroring, and archiving.

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