You can do your back-up in various different ways based onyour needs. You should choose the right approach as this operation can consume server resourcesand limit server performance.
The following are some ofthe ways by which you could perform backup in Sharepoint 2010
1.11. Back-Up a Farm
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In Central Administration, Goto>the Backup and Restore section>click Perform a backup.
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Select the appropriate componentto Back Up. It can be a specificsolution, specific Content Database, Service application, web application,secure store service or the full farm. And then click Next.
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In the Backup Type section,select either Full or Differential – First time taking a farmbackup it should be a FULL.
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In the Back Up OnlyConfiguration Settings section, click Back up content andconfiguration settings.
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In the Backup File Location section,type the UNC path of the backup folder, and then click Start Backup.
- You can view the general status of all backupjobs at the top of the Backup and Restore Status page in the Readiness section.You can view the status for the current backup job in the lower part of thepage in the Backup section. The status page updates every 30 secondsautomatically. You can manually update the status details by clicking Refresh.Backup and recovery are Timer service jobs. Therefore, it may take severalseconds for the backup to start.
2. Back-Up a Site Collection
1. In Central Administration > Backupand Restore >click Perform a site collection backup.
2. Select the site collection fromthe Site Collection list.
3. Type the local path of thebackup file in the Filename box.
4. Click Start Backup.
3. Back-Up a List, Site or Document Library:
1. In Central Administration>click Backupand Restore.
2. In the Granular Backup section>click Exporta site or list.
3. In the Site Collection section>selectthe site collection from the Site Collection list>elect the sitefrom the Sitelist.
4. If you are exporting a site,skip this step, Select the list or document library from the List list.
5. In the File Location section,in the Filename box, type the UNC path of the shared folder and thefile to which you want to export the list or document library. The file namemust use the .cmp extension.
6. If the file already exists andyou want to use this file, select the Overwrite existing files checkbox. Otherwise, specify a different file name.
7. If you want to export all thesecurity and permissions settings with the list or library, in the ExportFull Security section, select the Export full security check box.
Also, refer one of our prev post here