What is the difference between incremental and differential backup

This increases the backup chains redundancy and the flexibility in how each point is stored and used to virtualise a system in a disaster recovery scenario.

When their luxury hotel client experienced server failure, TekConcierge kept the business running with Datto SIRIS, avoiding downtime and lost profits for the client. Data protection solutions are essential for businesses of all sizes to implement, regardless of size, industry and geographic location. The shift to Infrastructure as a Service IaaS is building momentum as it allows businesses to avoid CapEx spending on hardware and software.

Building a cloud practice with Microsoft Azure presents many possibilities for innovation, flexibility, and enhancements for workloads and processes. Thank you, you are now subscribed to Downtime: the Datto Blog! May 18, Are you still using Full Backups? In the first case, the data will be updated frequently and have to be both backed up and restored as fast as possible to keep the processes going.

Downtime is the most costly part of data loss. The higher the stakes, the more demanding you should be in terms of the recovery time. So if you have no tolerance for downtime, a full backup will be the best choice that has the fastest recovery speed and represents the least risk. Note: Recovery time depends on many factors, and the backup type is only one of them.

Every detail matters, so be sure to consider all the factors. For example: If you opt for a cloud backup, the recovery for an incremental backup will be much faster than for an on-premises backup. Most of the data you need to back up may be left from the previous employees and are required to retain for regulatory reasons. Then be sure to create full backups at least twice a week, diluting them with incremental or differential backups. This is the simplest form of backup, but it is also the most time-consuming, space-intensive and the least flexible.

Typically full backups are only done once a week and are part of an overall backup plan. Sometimes a full backup is done after a major change of the data on the disk, such as an operating system upgrade or software install. The relatively long intervals between backups mean that if something goes wrong, a lot of data is going to be lost. That's why it is wise to back up data between full backups. Most of the information on a computer changes very slowly or not at all.

This includes the applications themselves, the operating system and even most of the user data. Typically, only a small percentage of the information in a partition or disk changes on a daily, or even a weekly, basis. For that reason, it makes sense only to back up the data that has changed on a daily basis. This is the basis of sophisticated backup strategies. With multiple full backups, each backup is usable on its own even though it may not entirely reflect the current state of data.

Since everything is stored in a single location, the restoration process is fast and hassle-free. It makes much more sense to create a single initial full backup and then back up only files that are either new or that have been changed since the last backup. The incremental backup strategy does precisely this.

For example, a full backup copy is created on Monday. The resulting backups are much smaller than full backups, and it takes just a short while to create them, depending on how many files there are to back up.

This also means that the entire backup chain is only as strong as the weakest link. Regular integrity checks are necessary, and multiple copies of each incremental backup are often stored at different locations.