Differential Images vs Incremental Images

D

Deleted member 2913

The benefits of differential and incremental backup (Differential, Incremental)

Incremental backup vs differential backup: difference and benefits of each one

I think -

Differential = Full Backup - Differential Backup (whatever changed after full backup) - Differential Backup (whatever changed after full backup) - so on ----- i.e every differential backup will have whatever changed after full backup.

Incremental - Full Backup - Incremental Backup (whatever changed after full backup) - Incremental Backup (whatever changed after incremental backup) - Incremental Backup (whatever changed after last incremental backup) - so on ------ i.e every incremental backup will have whatever changed after last incremental backup.

Guys, am I right?
 
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Duotone

Level 10
Verified
Well-known
Mar 17, 2016
457
Differential = Changes made from the Full Backup ~ New Backup(ex: Mon & Tues, Mon & Wed, Mon &Thurs,...) faster than full backup, has a bigger amount of data stored per backup compared to Incremental, but has a faster restoration process due to the difference between the full ~ last backup.

Incremental = Changes made from the Full Backup ~ New/consecutive Backups(ex: 1-2, 2-3, 3-4,...) it the fastest of the 2, stores small amount of data per backup, but slower restoration as it will need info on all the previous backup. Prior to that you shouldn't manually delete any backups in between the full and last backup as it can corrupt the last backup.


That's my understanding of how they work(or as how AX64/FLASHBACK works), Correct me if I'm wrong...:D
 
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L

LabZero

Incremental Backup

Unlike full backups, incremental backups check first if the file modification time is more recent than its last backup time. If this is not the case, the file has not been modified since the last backup and can be skipped. If the date of the change is more recent than the last backup date, the file has been modified, and then you can run the backup.

The primary advantage regarding the use of incremental backups is represented by the fact that the latter are faster than full backups. The primary disadvantage is that restoring any given file may mean to perform one or more incremental backups until the file is found in the question. When restoring a complete file system, you must restore the last full backup and every subsequent incremental backup.

Differential backups

Differential backups are similar to incremental backups and then they modify only those files. However, differential backups are cumulative, in other words, with a differential backup, once a file is modified it continues to be included in all subsequent differential backups (until, of course, the next full backup).

This means that each differential backup contains all files modified since the last full backup, making it possible to perform a complete restore with only the last full backup and the last differential backup.

I know you consider that the differential backups tend to increase over time (assuming different files are modified over the time since the last backup). This places differential backups somewhere between incremental backups and full in terms of use of the backup support and backup speed, while often providing faster single-file and complete restore.

So given these characteristics, I believe that it is better to consider the differential backup.
 
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