Microsoft SQL server 2005 has improved the capability of backup, restore and recover using the same facilities as regular database and the transactions log files. In previous releases full text catalogs were stored in the file system and in order to back it up you can to do this manually copying the catalog from SQL server data files.

In contrast to previous releases Full text catalog is managed by full text engine and it is included in database, log, file, and filegroup backups. Any indexing activities will be suppressed when a backup is taken to ensure consistency between full text catalog and database at this point of backup.

One of the good added features in back is that the full text change tracking log is included in any regular log backup and only data the has been changed between the last full backup needs to be re-indexed.

Hint: taking a full backup after making schema changes or significant data loading to full text catalog speeds up the process of recovery.