Backup SharePoint 2010 Site Collection from Central Admin

This article explains how to backup and site collection in SharePoint 2010 as well as how to restore a previously backup-up site collection. Demonstrates how to: Use SharePoint 2010 Central Administration to back up a site collection, Use SharePoint 2010 Management Shell to restore a site collection.

Use Central Administration to back up a site collection in SharePoint Server

To back up a site collection using the SharePoint Central Administration tool, perform the following steps:

1. Open the SharePoint Central Administration site on a SharePoint Server (Start, All Programs, Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products, SharePoint 2010 Central Administration).

2.       In Central Administration, on the Home page, in the Backup and Restore section, click Perform a site collection backup.

Site Collection Name: http://site/

File Name: d:\backup\Backupname.bak

3. On the Site collection backup page, select the site collection from the Site Collection list.
4. Type the local path of the backup file in the Filename box.
5. Enter the backup location and the filename ending with extension .bak in the Filename box. Select Overwrite Existing File if you want to overwrite, and then click Start Backup

After starting the backup, SharePoint 2010 displays the Granular Backup Job Status page. On this page, the granular backup progress can be monitored and displays site collection backup status and content export status.

Note

Site collection backups don’t include workflows.

6.       A backup of the site collection done using SharePoint Central Administration cannot be restored via the SharePoint Central Administration GUI. This backup can be restored only using Windows PowerShell cmdlet Restore-SPSite.