Incremental Backup: Technology with A Twist

Definition

Incremental backup is the backup of all the changes which you have made since the last backup was performed. It works similar to the old-fashioned backup but with a variation. Firstly the full backup will be performed, after that string of incremental backups will take place.

Example -

Suppose you have set an incremental backup schedule, starting from Friday to Wednesday. You perform the initial backup that is the backup of all the data on Friday. Then when you backup on Saturday it will only backup the changes which you have made on Friday. Then on Sunday, it will back up the changes you made on Saturday. Likewise, the whole process follows up. Thus it saves the space and time too.

Incremental Backup

Types - 

•    Standard Level backup saves the changes that you make after your incremented backup

•    Multilevel saves changes made since the last backup

•    Block level saves the changes made within the files

•    Byte-level backup saves the smallest changes you make to your files.

•    Reverse level saves the data in an image formation and stores in different locations timely.

Advantages - 

•    These backups cover less storage as it only backs up the changes made to the data after your first incremented backup. If you will save space, you are saving your money. More data means more space. You have to pay more for your cloud services for getting more space.

•    The process is very fast and can be performed in every hour. Full backups take a lot of time and its very time-consuming process. These backups are smart backups. They take very less time to backup all your data.

•    If your business handles large data on a daily basis, these backup proves to be a clever as well as effective choice.

•    These backups allow holding of several versions of some files thereby providing transparency.

•    Data is highly compressed while these backups are performed. Also, these backups lower the pressure on the working system.

Disadvantages

•    The process of full restoring is slow as compared to other backups.

•    There is a risk of losing your data.

How to benefit from these backups?

In comparison to full backups, these backups take less backup time and will save your disc space better. These Backup acts as your Server’s Best Friend. When you have got a site with data that changes every single day you need to get your data updated and backed up. Doing the full back up on a daily basis will consume your time as well as take a lot of storage.

These backups are simple and helpful. All you need to do is to carefully plan these backups to get the desired true results.

Conclusion-

These backups offer some really great advantages such as saving the disc space, saving our precious time but it does come with a lot of complexity dealing with knowing the files for a varying period of time. Therefore the perfect way to keep your site’s whole data safe and secure is to use the combination of full backup and incremental backup. Do backup your data and be tension free!