There are majorly two backup strategies used incremental vs differential backup which are used for making frequent backups of data for disaster management. It systems can break down in any organization due to several unforeseen reasons which include security issues, outages or natural events. In disasters you must be having a backup so that your critical data is safeguarded at any mishap. It is very impractical to take the whole data backup each time so differential strategy comes in place which only takes backup of data which is differential or in simple words new changes in data. The other incremental data backup strategy works on the last data backup you took so it preserve changes to the last data type backup you took.
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Full vs. incremental vs. differential backup — how they work
Total of three main data backup strategies are in placed
Full backup
In case of full backup, whole data backup is taken regardless of the changes you have recently made. Full data backup is generally taken at less frequency because of practical reasons like it being a time-consuming job while also taken a lot of storage space. Differential and incremental data backup approaches are in placed to avoid the hassle of time and space restraints.
Incremental backup
Incremental data backup only saves the changes you made to the last backup. For instance, if you made a incremental backup on Saturday then your incremental data backup approach would only save changes to the data happened preceding Saturday when you last took the backup.
Differential backup
A differential backup works on the last backup changes and newly added data so if you took all the full backup on Saturday then on Monday only the changes since Saturday would be backed up following the differential data backup approach. So if you take another backup on Tuesday then all the changes since Saturday would be saved. In differential approach data backup size increases progressively since you took the last full backup.
Key differences: incremental vs. differential backup
Both the approaches incremental vs differential backup provide different benefits depending what you want to achieve in backup performance. Here are key differences in both backup strategies.
Backup speed
Speed wise incremental data backups takes less time than differential backups because backup image file size does not increase on daily basis.
In comparison incremental backup is quicker due to consistently smaller backup files
Storage space utilization
Space wise differential backups take more storage space because of the increasing time since you last took the backup. While their counterpart incremental backup takes up less storage space.
Implementation cost
In a general view incremental backup saves network bandwidth as well as storage space. If we see in the longer run when a full backup is paired with incremental backups it presents a more cost-effective solution.
Differential backups because you must take full backups at higher frequency, results in higher costs to keep up with the higher efficiency.
Data restoration speed
While incremental backups are cost-efficient, it can time-consuming and complex to restore data. It requires the first full backup and all subsequent incremental backups to restore data. For example, a crash on Wednesday would require you to go through all backups from Sunday to Tuesday, identify changes, and restore them cumulatively. The process gets more complex as time from the last full backup increases.
Although incremental backups being cost efficient but they are complex and time consuming in nature.
On the other hand, restoring from differential backups only requires the first full and the latest differential backup. It’s also much faster.
In comparison differential backups restoration only require single full and latest differential backup which is why much faster.
When to use differential vs. incremental backup
Selection of any methods differential or incremental backup strategy depends on the budget and requirements do you have.
Frequency of data changes
If the changes are frequent and data is more then incremental backups are more suited option for your organization because they can save both costs and time of backup.
In contrast, if you go for differential backups then costs could pile up pretty quick.
Business requirements
You should always keep your organizational requirements and needs above all because each organization has different backup and data recovery policy.
For instance, if you work for an ecommerce store than product data will be critical for them and in that specific scenario differential backups become ideal for you because of being minimal downtime and faster restore times.
But in some instances, you just archive image files or video data in full data backup when it is not going to change over time.
Synthetic vs. incremental forever backup
Other backup data strategies which are used less as compare to incremental and differential backups.
Synthetic full backup
Synthetic full backup works on comparing data which has changed in the source with the original backup along with incremental backups for developing next full synthesized backup. Storing instead of only the backup file following incremental data backup approach. It focuses on consolidating changes and creating a synthetic full backup. All of this process remains invisible to your end users.
In synthetic backup there are no savings on storage space but you surely save on network bandwidth. Only the incremental changes are sent to the server instead of whole data. Full backup copy is created using data server is already having.
Incremental forever backup
All the backup guides including period full backups discussed in this guide. Regardless of you implement forever backup, you just need to take initial full backup. Following initial full backup you take sequence of backups forever.
The backup server stores all backup sets on a tape library or a large disk array. It automates the restoration process so it mimics restoration from a full backup.
All backup data server stores in large disk array or a tape library. By mimicking restoration from a full backup automation of restoration process is achieved.
Summary of differences: full vs. incremental vs. differential backup
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