File Management Options

You can define a number of options for file management that are used throughout SQL Backup Manager. For example, you can specify the default folder for backup files.

On the Tools menu, click Options. The File Management tab is selected by default.

In the SQL Server box, select the name of the SQL Server instance for which you want to set the options.

Backup file locations

You can set up a default folder and file name format for your backups, so that you do not have to enter the same information repeatedly when you create backups or backup jobs using the graphical user interface.

In the Backup folder box, type the path for the folder in which you want your backups to be created by default, or click to browse to the location. You can use tags in the path if required. For example, if you want the backup files for each database to be created in a separate folder, you can specify the <DATABASE> tag:

C:\Backups\<DATABASE>

For details of the tags you can use, see File Location Tags.

If you do not specify a location, SQL Backup Manager uses the default SQL Server backup folder, which is usually C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\BACKUP.

In the File name format box, define the default file name for backup files using the tags. The default is:

<TYPE>_<INSTANCE>_<DATABASE>_<DATETIME>

For example, for a full database backup of the Data database running on the default SQL Server instance, the form of the backup file name would be:

FULL_(local)_Data_20070929_0050.sdb

where the numbers show the date and time of the backup. To reset the file name format to its default value, click Reset.

Your settings will be used the next time you use a backup wizard or the BACKUP command. The settings are saved on your computer.

SQL Server backup history

If you want SQL Backup Manager to delete the SQL Server backup history, select the Delete old backup history check box, then type or select the age (in days or hours) of the files that you want to delete.