The SharePoint 2010 Central Administration Backup and Restore page now comes with two options for backup and restore:
• Farm Backup and Restore
• Granular Backup and Restore
Using the Farm Backup and Restore option, SharePoint administrators can back up the following:
• Complete Farm
• Farm Configuration Only
• Individual Components in a Farm
Granular backup and restore is a new addition in SharePoint 2010 Central Administration tool that enables SharePoint administrators to do the following:
• Back up site collection
• Export document library or list
Ideally the SharePoint Central Administration tool would be used to do a once-off backup or restore operation. As with previous versions, scheduling backups via the SharePoint 2010 Central Administration tool is not an option from within the GUI.