Acronis True Image Home: Database Backup

It is recommended to use Acronis Backup & Recovery for database backups

This article applies to:

Acronis True Image Home 2010
Acronis True Image Home 2011
Acronis True Image Home 2012

Introduction

Since there is no Volume Snapshot Service (VSS) support in Acronis True Image Home 2010 or Acronis True Image Home 2011, it is strongly recommended to use Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 to create a backup of a system with any VSS-compliant databases running in it.

You can still back up a system with database with Acronis True Image Home 2010 or Acronis True Image Home 2011 using pre/post commands.

If the database that you are going to back up supports transactions, the transactions active at the moment of creating a snapshot may become corrupted.

This means that after the restore, the database will roll back such transactions to make it consistent. Data of only active transactions will be lost.

To avoid losing the active transactions you can use pre/post commands to stop the database before the backup starts and restart it after the backup is completed.

Solution

If you are using Acronis True Image Home 2012 and want to backup a system with a database, see the instructions below:

Creating database backup with Acronis True Image Home 2012

Start the product and click Disk and partition backup:
Select the disk to back up and where to save the backup. Then click Disk backup options:
Go to Pre/Post commands section and check Use custom commands. Click Edit next to Pre-command field:
In the Edit Command window, provide a batch file to stop the database service:

In this example, the batch file stops the SQL Server (SQLEXPRESS) service. See also Using Batch Files in Acronis True Image for batch files.

You can also click Test command to see if the batch file is executed properly:

(!) The Test command button will run the batch file. In this example, this means that the SQL Server (SQLEXPRESS) service will be stopped. Also, if you have the Do not perform operations... and Abort the operation... boxes checked, and the service is stopped, the backup will fail after clicking Test command. So, make sure the service is started before you run the backup. You can also start the service by clicking Test command in the After backup process window.
Then provide a batch to start database service:
When both commands are set, click OK to close Disk Backup Options:
Press Back up now or select Later in the drop-down list to run the backup manually later.

If you are going to back up a system with database using Acronis True Image Home 2011, please proceed with the following steps:

Creating database backup with Acronis True Image Home 2011

Start the product and click Disk backup:
Select the disk to back up and where to save the backup. Then click Disk backup options:
Go to Pre/Post commands section and check Use custom commands. Click Edit next to Pre-command field:
In the Edit Command window, provide a batch file to stop the database service:

In this example, the batch file stops the SQL Server (SQLEXPRESS) service. See also Using Batch Files in Acronis True Image for batch files.

You can also click Test command to see if the batch file is executed properly:

(!) The Test command button will run the batch file. In this example, this means that the SQL Server (SQLEXPRESS) service will be stopped. Also, if you have the Do not perform operations... and Abort the operation... boxes checked, and the service is stopped, the backup will fail after clicking Test command. So, make sure the service is started before you run the backup. You can also start the service by clicking Test command in the After backup process window.
Then provide a batch to start database service:
When both commands are set, click OK to close Disk Backup Options:
Press Back up now or select Later in the drop-down list to run the backup manually later.

If you are going to back up a system with database using Acronis True Image Home 2010, please see instructions below:

Creating database backups in Acronis True Image Home 2010

Start the product and click Backup -> Disk backup:
Select the disk to back up and where to save the backup. Then click Backup options:
Click Pre/Post commands and select Use custom commands and click Edit next to Before backup process:
In the Edit Command window, provide a batch file to stop the database service:

In this example, the batch file stops the SQL Server (SQLEXPRESS) service. See also Using Batch Files in Acronis True Image for batch files.

You can also click Test command to see if the batch file is executed properly:

(!) The Test command button will run the batch file. In this example, this means that the SQL Server (SQLEXPRESS) service will be stopped. Also, if you have the Do not perform operations... and Abort the operation... boxes checked, and the service is stopped after clicking Test command, the backup will fail. So, make sure the service is started before you run the backup. You can also start the service by clicking Test command in the After backup process window.
Then provide a batch file to start the database service:
Once everything is set, click Proceed.