STSADM to Backup Sharepoint

I have tried many different ways to backup a Sharepoint site. I have found STSADM to be pretty reliable when backing up an entire site.

Here is the command I use:

stsadm -o backup -url http://sharepoint/site -filename d:\backupfolder\backup.bak -backupmethod full

You can also use the -overwrite switch to overwrite an existing backup file.