An archive backup is a collection of one or more files that together contain all the required information for the backup, including the main database file, the transaction log, and any additional dbspaces. You can only perform archive backups as server-side backups. You can save an archive backup to either a file or a tape drive.

When making archive backups, an extension is added to the file name you specify in the BACKUP statement for each file that is created (.1, .2, .3, and so on).

By default, archive backups skip some free pages, which can result in smaller and potentially faster backups. Free page elimination has no affect on the back up of transaction log files because transaction log files do not contain free pages. So, databases with large transaction log files may not benefit as much from free page elimination as databases with small transaction log files.

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