You could use SQL Server Management Studio to backup the databases or even use Maintenance Plans, but using T-SQL is a much simpler and faster approach.
With the use of T-SQL you can generate your backup commands and with the use of cursors, you can cursor through all of your databases to back them up one by one. This is a very straightforward process and you only need a handful of commands to do this.
Below is a simple script to backup all SQL Server databases.
Here is the script that will allow you to backup each database within your instance of SQL Server. You will need to change the @path to the appropriate backup directory.
File Naming Format DBname_YYYYDDMM.BAK
File Naming Format DBname_YYYYDDMM_HHMMSS.BAK
If you want to also include the time in the filename you can replace this line in the above script:
SELECT @fileDate = CONVERT(VARCHAR(20),GETDATE(),112)
with this line:
SELECT @fileDate = CONVERT(VARCHAR(20),GETDATE(),112) + REPLACE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(20),GETDATE(),108),’:’,”)
Notes
In this script, we are bypassing the system databases, but these could easily be included as well. You could also change this into a stored procedure and pass in a database name or if left NULL it backups all databases. Any way you choose to use it, this script gives you the starting point to simply backup all of your databases.
Also, if you wanted to bypass some of your user databases you can include them in the NOT IN section as well.
Next Steps
- Add this script to your toolbox
- Modify this script and make it a stored procedure to include one or many parameters
- Enhance the script to use additional BACKUP options
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