views:

415

answers:

2

I need some help for executing my planned backup strategy.

My database is about 1 gig in size. I want to perform a full backup once per week, and incremental every hour.

Is all of this built into SQL Server 2005 Express?

Is it possible to roll over the backups so I only keep 1 months of backups?

Meaning the full weekly backup has 1 for each week, on the 5th week it writes over the oldest full backup.

A: 

SQL Server express does not have the ability to setup maintenance plans, therefore you must manually execute the scripts. AFAIK.

With all other editions, a simple DB Maint. plan can be setup to do all of this, and it will even walk you through the process.

Mitchel Sellers
SQL 2005 for Workgroups doesn't have maintenance plan ability either.
Kev
I have it on my Workgroup edition SQL Server
Mitchel Sellers
Really..? when we installed it way back when it wasn't available. I wonder if they added in a SP?
Kev
Yup! I'm running about 10-15 databases on it now on a VPS server! It may very well be a part of and SP, but it is there now, works like a charm!
Mitchel Sellers
Maybe I'll keep that one to myself, we've been doing a roaring trade in SQL Std edition installs. :)
Kev
+2  A: 

You can do it, it's just harder.

You don't have maintenence plans, but that doesn't matter becuase they often cause more headaches than they solve. You will want to script the backup yourself.

The other issue is you won't have the SQL Server Agent, which is used for scheduling your scripts. You can solve this by using sqlcmd and the windows scheduler.

ScottStonehouse