Which Backups to Restore?

About this interactive

A backup is a copy of your data from a specific date and time, kept on another device so you can restore it. A full backup copies everything. The nights after it can run one of two kinds. A differential copies everything that has changed since the last full backup. Each night's differential is bigger than the one before, because it keeps copying the same changes again. To restore, you need the full backup plus the latest differential: two sets. An incremental copies everything that has changed since the last backup of any kind, full or incremental. Each night's is small, just that day's changes. To restore, you need the full backup plus every incremental since, in order. So the trade-off is backup time against restore time: differentials take longer to back up and less to restore; incrementals the other way round.

What you'll learn

Work out what a differential or incremental backup copies, and which backup sets a restore needs, from a schedule of full, differential and incremental backups
Choose differential or incremental backups from what matters more: a short restore or a small nightly backup

Aligned to

CompTIA Tech+

6.7 Explain business continuity concepts.

CompTIA A+ Core 2

4.3 Given a scenario, implement workstation backup and recovery methods.

CompTIA Server+

3.7 Given a scenario, implement backup and restore procedures.

Key terms

Full Backup: A backup that copies all data on a selected system, volume, or dataset regardless of when it was last changed.
Differential Backup: A backup that copies all data changed since the last full backup, growing in size with each run until the next full backup.
Incremental Backup: A backup that copies only data changed since the last backup of any type, whether full or incremental, resulting in smaller and faster backups.
Backup: A copy of data captured at a specific point in time and stored separately from the source system, used to restore information in the event of data loss, corruption, or a security incident such as ransomware.

Topics

Backup Full Backup Differential Backup Incremental Backup Restore Interactive Fill In

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