I noticed a new “feature” that has been implemented with Service Pack 2 when performing stsadm backups. When performing a stsadm backup from the command line I now receive the following message before the backup starts:

Setting the site collection to be read-only for the duration of the backup. If the operation is interrupted, make sure to check the site lock for this site collection. For more information see stsadm.exe -help getsitelock and stsadm.exe -help setsitelock.
The setsitelock stsadm operation is described in TechNet article “Back up and restore site collections by using built-in tools (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0)”.

This operation has been available since the release of SharePoint 2007 but I had no knowledge of this operation until I installed Service Pack two and ran my first stsadm backup manually from the command line and received the message above. After performing some research I found the following information in the TechNet article “Setsitelock: Stsadm operation (Windows SharePoint Services)”, which states the following information:

“A common situation where the getsitelock and setsitelock operations are useful is when a site is backed up. Typically, before you back up a site collection, the site should be locked and no users should have access to it.”(TechNet)

Important:
In Service Pack 2 for SharePoint Products and Technologies, site collections are automatically locked as read-only before a backup process occurs. Therefore, there is no need to use the Setsitelock: Stsadm operation (Windows SharePoint Services) operation. If you do not want site collections to be locked as read-only, you must specify the nositelock parameter of the Backup: Stsadm operation (Windows SharePoint Services) operation that is available in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 with Service Pack 2 (SP2).

Apparently the best practice for backing up sites before service pack 2 was to set the site lock to read only and then remove the site lock after the backup using stsadm. Now with service pack 2 this is done automatically for SharePoint administrators. One thing I have noticed when the stsadm backup fails the site lock will not be released and must be removed manually using the commands from the TechNet article “Setsitelock: Stsadm operation (Windows SharePoint Services)”.