>>You can stop SQL Server service before backup and start after
>>
>>NET STOP MSSQLSERVER
>>...
>>NET START MSSQLSERVER
>>
>>
>
>That probably is the most foolproof way to do it.
>
>I'd look at letting SQL Server back up the database(s) using it's BACKUP DATABASE capability though - just point (or copy) the backups out to your external drive. This way the database stays running.
I do do BACKUP DATABASE from SQL Server periodically. But I also want to copy the database files to the external drive when doing it for all other data residing on my drive. Hopefully, if my drive dies and the only copy I have is the one on the external drive (done with COPY) can still be used to restore the data.
"The creative process is nothing but a series of crises." Isaac Bashevis Singer
"My experience is that as soon as people are old enough to know better, they don't know anything at all." Oscar Wilde
"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too." W.Somerset Maugham
