Microsoft® SQL Server 2012 Unleashed

Maintaining System Databases

You should give system databases the same attention you give your user databases. These databases should be backed up on a regular basis and secured in the event that one of them needs to be restored. All the system databases, with the exception of tempdb and resource, can be backed up. These same databases can also be restored to bring them back to a previous state.

Note

Although you cannot back up the resource database using SQL Server’s BACKUP and RESTORE commands, you can make a backup copy of it by performing a file-based or disk-based backup of the mssqlsystemresource.mdf file (SQL Server must not be running at the time). Likewise, you can manually restore a backup copy of the mssqlsystemresource.mdf file only ...