If you are a server administrator, you can back up all hosted databases, databases in selected additional folders, a selected database, and any separate container folders specified for a database. If you are a group administrator, you can back up only hosted databases that are in your administrator group.

Database backups are saved in the folder that you specify in the Schedule assistant.

Every time a scheduled backup task runs, FileMaker Server checks whether the selected databases have changed since the last time that scheduled backup ran. For each scheduled backup task, FileMaker Server creates a full copy of the databases that have changed and creates hard links to the backed-up databases that have not changed for that scheduled backup.

During backups, FileMaker Server copies the database while it is active. Users can continue to make modifications. When the copy is complete, the database pauses to synchronize backup files with the current database and then the database resumes. In the Schedule assistant, you can also specify the maximum number of database backups to keep, whether to perform a consistency check on the backup file, and whether to receive email notifications when backups are complete.

The destination disk that stores your hosted files and backups must have plenty of free space. If the hard disk runs out of space while a file is being modified or if a database file reaches the 8 terabytes size limit, the file will be compressed. Compression may take some time to complete.

If the hard disk runs out of space during a backup, the backup stops, the backup file is deleted, and FileMaker Server logs an error in Event.log. You should check the Schedules list for error conditions, which are reported in the status. To avoid running out of disk space when backing up files, choose a different hard disk as your backup destination, or move completed backups to offline storage.