R – Backup and Restore SSP on MOSS 2007 fails due to missing .mdf files

You can't really backup / restore both config database and search database:

• restoring config database only work if your new farm have exactly the same server names
• when you restore the search database, the fulltext index is not synchronize. however, this is not a problem as you can just reindex.

As a result, I would say that yes, this a reliable for content. But take care of:

• You may have to redo some configuration (AAM, managed path...).
• This does not include customization, you want to keep a backup of your solution

Hey I'm new here but just wanted to add my two cents.

I was having the same issue and found one of the above users was correct, the error was generated because a system account did not have access to the share.

On our server we got the same error. When we created our Sharepoint sites we selected the Network Service account to run the site. I went to the share and added the Network Service account with Full Control and now the restore works.

Hope this helps someone.