Differential or Incremental backup

[Mel]

I am using Windows XP. I did a normal backup on selected files and folders
and now want to schedule it to run once a day automatically. I do a lot of
Word documents for my business and add to existing and create new documents
daily. Should I use the Differential or Incremental backup from this point
on? I don't see the difference between the two.

 

[Mel]

One more question---------Should I append the new backup to the current file
or replace the file?

 

[CWatters]

Lets say you do a full backup on Sunday night and then work Monday to Friday
and make Incremental or Differential Backups each night.....

Differential backups:

Each differential backup contains ALL the work you did since Sunday's full
backup. Example:: Wednesdays backup contains work you did on Monday,
Tuesday, and Wednesday. If your hard drive failed on Thursday you would
only need to use Sundays full backup AND Wednesdays differential backup to
get back all your work.

Incremental backup

Each incremental backup contains just the work you did that day
(specifically the work you did since the last incremental backup). Example::
Wednesdays backup contains only the work you did on Wednesday. If your hard
drive failed on Thursday you would need to use Sundays full backup AND
Mondays incremental AND Tuesdays incremental AND Wednesdays incremental to
get back all your work.

Which to choose?

If you have enough space on the media to store the backups I would do
Differential backups as this has some duplication (eg it's safer). If your
storage media is short of space or the backup takes too long then do
incremental backups.

You mentioned that this is for business use? Which program are you using to
do backups? If you are using the Microsoft supplied free program then be
aware that some people don't consider this suitable for "mission critical"
use. For recommendations on other programs to use try posting a question on
the comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage news group. It might be worth looking
at "BackupNow" from NTI or if you want to backup an entire disc then Drive
Image from Powerquest works for me. Both programs are reasonably easy to
use.

Colin (not an MVP)

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

The only thing I would add is that if you've enough room and time,
do a full backup each night. Then you've only one tape to deal with
during recovery. Otherwise, the differential method is generally
preferable.

Bruce Chambers

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[Mel]

I had been using Quicksync. Any thoughts on that?

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

Greetings --

The only thing I would add is that if you've enough room and time,
do a full backup each night. Then you've only one tape to deal with
during recovery. Otherwise, the differential method is generally
preferable.

I've always preferred full backups to differential or incremental
backups, not only because, as you point out, restoring a backup
is easier, but for another reason. If you have to restore from a
full backup plus one or more differential backups, it doesn't
necessarily put your drive back to exactly the same state it was
in. That's because any files deleted after the full backup but
before the differentials, will end up back on your restored
drive.

That difference is usually not terribly important, but it can be.

Full backups take longer to do, but are easier to restore, as
well as producing more accurate restoration.