Every Microsoft SQL Server database has a log that records all the transactions and database modifications made by each transaction. The transaction log is a critical component of any database, and understanding and managing this log is a critical part of the database administrator's role. This is particularly true under the full and bulk-logged recovery models, which require backing up the log on a regular basis.
This section also contains essential information about the basic architecture of transaction logs and how to manage them.
Important: |
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To minimize the risk of damage to your transaction log, we recommend that you locate the transaction log on fault-tolerant storage, such as mirrored disks. |

In This Section
- Introduction to Transaction Logs
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Introduces the transaction log and the actions that it supports, and contains links to more advanced information about transaction logs.
- Recovery Models and Transaction Log Management
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Discusses the role of the recovery model of a database in transaction log management, how to choose the recovery model for a database, transactions that are minimally logged in the bulk-logged and simple recovery models, and guidelines for switching recovery models.
- Managing the Transaction Log
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Discusses managing log space, managing long-running transactions, and the factors that can delay log truncation.

See Also