Backup Database SQL Server

SQL Backup | How to Create a Full Backup of Database in SQL Server

This article explains the steps you need to follow to take a FULL Backup of Database in SQL Server Using SQL Server Management Studio and by using TSQL Scripts.

How to Backup Database in SQL Server | Backup SQL Database

The steps mentioned in this article are applicable for SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2012, SQL Server 2014, SQL Server 2016 and higher.

If you are interested in knowing the steps you need to follow to restore a full database back up in SQL Server then read the following article titled “How to Restore Full Database Backup in SQL Server”.

A Step by Step Guide to Take a Full Database Backup in SQL Server.

Permissions Required to Take Database Backup in SQL Server

To take backups a user must be a member of DBCREATOR Server Role and DB_OWNER Database Role else you will receive the below mentioned error while performing backups.

Error Message

Msg 262, Level 14, State 1, Line 1
BACKUP DATABASE permission denied in database 'DatabaseName'.
Msg 3013, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
BACKUP DATABASE is terminating abnormally.

TSQL Script – Create Login with DBCREATOR Server Role and DB_OWNER Database Role

CREATE LOGIN BackupRestoreAdmin WITH PASSWORD='$tr0ngP@$$w0rd'
GO
CREATE USER BackupRestoreAdmin FOR LOGIN BackupRestoreAdmin
GO
EXEC sp_addsrvrolemember 'BackupRestoreAdmin', 'dbcreator'
GO
EXEC sp_addrolemember 'db_owner','BackupRestoreAdmin'
GO

Database Administrator or a user who is a member of DBCREATOR Server Role and DB_OWNER Database Role can take a Full Backup of a database in SQL Server using SQL Server Management Studio, T-SQL Scripts or by using Powershell Commands.

Let’s get started…

How to Take Full Database Backup SQL Server Using SQL Server Management Studio

Step 1. Open SQL Server Management Studio and connect to the appropriate instance of Microsoft SQL Server Database Engine in Object Explorer.

Step 2. Expand Databases node and then right click the database which you want to take a full backup and point to Tasks, and then click Back Up… option as shown in the below snippet to open up Back Up Database dialog box.

Step 3. In Back Up Database Dialog box, in Database List box, verify the database name. Optionally you can even select a different database to backup. You will be able to perform a Full Backup of a database which is FULL, BULK_LOGGED or Simple recovery model. To know more about different recovery models in SQL Server read the following article titled Understanding Different SQL Server Recovery Models.

Step 4. In Backup type list box select Full. Once you have taken a full backup of a database then you can perform Differential backup or Transactional log backups. However, if you database is in Simple recovery model you will not be able to take a Transactional log backup. This is by design from Microsoft.

Step 5. If you want to perform a Copy-Only backup of a database then choose Copy-Only Backup option in Back Up Database Dialog box. Using copy-only backup option you can take a Full, Differential or Transaction Log Backup which is independent of the sequence of conventional SQL Server backups. The copy-only backup option was initial introduced in SQL Server 2005.

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