Restore site or list from backup without attaching database

A great improvement to Restore/Backups was made to SharePoint 2010. In MOSS2007 the restore/backup functionality was restricted to Farm, Web Applications and Content Databases.

In the 2010 version, using just the OOTB options, we can be as granular as choosing an individual list. This greatly improves the flexibility of this functionality. Not surprisingly, the feature is called Granular Backup.
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