How to backup/restore excluding filestream varbinary in SQL Server 2008?

Solution 1:

You can perform a piecemeal restore. I'm not sure if SSMS supports it - perhaps that's why you've been unable to click your way through.

Note, however, that in case of piecemeal restore, the data residing in the not-yet-restored filegroups (filestream in your case) will be simply unavailable (as opposed to being replaced with NULLs).