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We've taken over development and server admin for an e-commerce site, and the client has opted for a well-specced dedicated server, including a second drive for daily Windows Server Backups.

However currently the server just has SQL Server Express, so we don't have daily SQL backups. But as we have full hard drive backups going, I expect that we could just restore the old DB file if we needed to roll back.

So I'm wondering if this is a satisfactory solution. The only issue I can think of is that restoring old data is slower and less elegant, but I can cope with that, and the added downtime wouldn't be a major concern. Aside from that, are there any other issues, specifically data loss risks?

andrewb
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  • `1.` Assuming you're only interested in restoring the database(s) in their entirety and that you can restore the data you need to restore when you need to restore it, what does It matter which type of backup you use? `2.` What does this mean, exactly: `The only issue I can think of is that restoring old data is slower and less elegant` – joeqwerty Jun 15 '15 at 04:05
  • That's what I'm wanting to check, in case I've missed something. Don't want to assume that it's all ok, then have a data loss scenario and suddenly I get caught up by some obscure issue. Re. the elegance, I imagine with scheduled backups, it'd be easier to generate simple rollback scripts and such. And it's marginally quicker browsing with Windows Explorer than Windows Server Backup. – andrewb Jun 15 '15 at 04:08
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    As for which is better, I think that's a bit subjective. As for Windows Server Backup, it's fully capable of creating a consistent backup of SQL server (via VSS) and restoring that backup. I'd prefer Windows Server Backup for backing up the OS and using SQL or a third party product to backup SQL Server, but that's just me. With Windows Server Backup you'll be able to perform a bare metal recovery of the entire server if needed. If you only backup SQL Server then you'll only be able to restore your SQL databases, if the server dies you'll have to restore your databases to a new server. – joeqwerty Jun 15 '15 at 04:35
  • Ok cool. What's your reason for preferring SQL or a third party product for backing up the DB - just ease of use? – andrewb Jun 15 '15 at 04:55

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