Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005: Applied Techniques Step by Step

Using Differential Backups

The main advantage of a full database backup is that it contains all the data needed to rebuild the entire database. But this advantage can also be a disadvantage. Consider a database where full database backups are performed each night. If you need to recover the database, you always have to use the backup from the previous night, resulting in the loss of a whole day’s work. One way to reduce the potential period of time that can be lost would be to perform full database backups more often. But this itself can be a problem. Because all data and parts of the transaction log are written to the backup device, it can be very time-intensive to make a backup. Also, you need a lot of storage space to hold these backups, ...