Best practices and use of SP 2010 functionality for restoring SITE/SITE Collection

Procedure for restoring a site pre-SP1

Restore entire farm from backup.

Drawbacks: Time consuming, costly and sometimes complete failure.

Procedure for restoring a site post-SP1

1.       Ensure user is a site collection administrator
2.       Go to Site Actions –> Site Actions
3.       Click Site Collection Administration
4.       Click Recycle Bin
5.       Check the site you want to restore and click Restore.

Quick and simple, isn’t it?

In Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 w/ SP1, a deleted site is not permanently deleted, but moved to the 2nd stage Recycle Bin. The default setting for automatic deletion is 30 days – however, this is modifiable. You can see how to do these changes here -

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263125.aspx

Restoring whole Site Collections -

You can use the following PowerShell cmdlets to restore, delete or view deleted site collections:
•         Get-SPDeletedSite - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh286316.aspx
•         Remove-SPDeletedSite - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh286317.aspx
•         Restore-SPDeletedSite - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh286319(v=office.15).aspx

Hope this above information will help you to understand the new functionality and benefits