Home Forums SQL Server 2005 Backups Backup and Restore of Entire SQL Server 2005 Instance RE: Backup and Restore of Entire SQL Server 2005 Instance

  • If this is for DR, you might not want to have this automated to that level. A DR server potentially will have a different name, different IP addressing, different drive locations, etc.

    You can restore master/msdb to a new server once you've installed SQL Server. Then you can restore databases. Honestly restoring 20 dbs isn't that hard or time consuming. You connect multiple times with query windows and start each restore. Or you have a script to read the backup files and restore them, fix logins, etc.

    There are companies that sell software to do a bare metal restore, including SQL Server and Windows, but I have not had great luck with them, precisely because of differences in hardware.

    Another alternative is a physical to virtual conversion. That will copy everything and get you a complete duplicate, but remember that IP and Windows naming will be in conflict.