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IBM-AUSTRIA - PC-HW-Support 30 Aug 1999 |
Full/Differential Pattern
Full/Differential Pattern
Another way of performing
backups is to take full backups and differential backups, with
incremental backups in between.
In this pattern:
- A full backup saves every file.
- A differential backup saves the files that have changed since the previous full backup.
- An incremental backup saves the files
that have changed since the previous incremental backup (or the previous
differential backup if no previous incremental backups exist, or the
previous full if no previous differentials exist).
This process reduces
the number of tapes to manage because you can discard the incremental
tapes once you have done a differential. You still have to manage the
incremental tapes prior to the differential backup, however.
This way of performing
backups implies:
- One tape (or set of tapes) per day
- Very little data on each tape (except the full backup tape)
- More tapes to manage, because you have to keep the full backup tapes,
the differential tapes, and the incremental tapes
Figure 2. Tape Usage in Full-Differential Backup Patterns
The advantage of the Full/Differential pattern over a
Full/Incremental pattern is that a restore will use Full + Differential
+ Incremental backups which would require less tapes (see
Example).
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