Incremental backups vs full backups? Help!

saas1980 · Mar 27, 2017

Incremental backups

I use Cobian Backup for 'full backups' of my files and folders on a weekly basis.

In the past when errors were made or files had been lost, the full back up weekly feature has always helped in quickly finding those files or the previous versions of those files. Only problem is, full backups take up loads of space and also keeps my external drive running heavy loads with each backup weighing around 150 gig (and thats without videos).

If I use 'incremental backup' and some of the files are altered for the next scheduled backup, is there a way I can revert back to the original file? Or does incremental backup completely replace previous files? If previous saved files are erased/replaced, is there any option or another backup app which can retain those files?

mcnumpty23 · Mar 27, 2017

not heard of that one

i use macrium reflect free version and totally recommend it

though never tried incremental back ups as my drives are so fast a full back up only takes a few minutes any way

i also have a drive i use for file history as well in case i only want a certain file/files

though got a feeling you can mount macrium back ups and browse them as well

JackNaylorPE · Mar 27, 2017

Full backup replaces all files with every backup, writing over the old ones.

Incremental replaces ONLY those files that have changed, writing over ONLY the ones that have changed. If original file didn't change, it's still there and is left alone.

For an external drive, you should be mirroring the drive (not as in RAID but basically it's a simply copy / paste function) , not storing compressed backups. This means:

a) your back up drive is an exact duplicate of the HD, not one giant compressed file
b) if HD fails, the external drive can be used immediately w/o uncompressing and restoring someplace else.
c) If back up file is fudges, every file in the backup is fudged

Full daily backups serve only to greatly increase wear and tear on both storage components and therefore lead to premature drive failure. Why reread and rewrite 1.5 GB of files when only 2 MB of files have changed ?

Back in the days of tape drives and compressed file backups, we used to do a full back up on the 1st of the month (or week) to replace the compressed files ... then daily incrementals in between. Now since storage is so cheap, a mirror makes much more sense.

With a mirror, you can browse the files, read the files, compare the files.... can even restore w/o opening the backup program ... simply copy and paste.

ss202sl · Mar 27, 2017

I used to do backups at work. i did weekly backups(to tape) and daily incrementals, and kept a years worth of tapes in out vault. I routinely had requests to pull old tapes to revert files back to a previous version. It's just a matter of keeping the backups, and not overwriting them.

saas1980 · Mar 27, 2017

@mcnumpty

A separate drive for file history? Is this something where all previously saved documents are saved and are freely accessible. For instance, if had a word document which was created a month ago, then I made changes to the document each week (4 week period) and saved the files accordingly. If the file history was scheduled to run every week in the same period, would I be able to view all 4 previously saved documents or versions of those documents?

So far the only solution I found was the full weekly backup to achieve the above.

@JackNaylorPE

This is precisely my concern, the wear and tear and constant heavy use of full backups. BTW cobian does not replace the previous full back, which has been my desired outcome. But as you you suggested it's ridiculous having to create full backups regularly when vast amount of the data remains the same.

The mirror image solution sounds brilliant and I will definitely look into this further. But currently im more concerned about the same concerns above (the example of file history I shared with mcnumpty). I understand incremental backups write over previous backups if changed, but is there way to keep those previous files too, like a secondary option? I have found many instances where I have saved documents in the past by deleting some needed content, especially in excel and word. Once saved and closed, office applications when opened again do not allow to revert back to the previous state. Hence I am able to revert back to my full backups to find those files. In some cases, the error may have been noticed several weeks later after several backups had commenced. Here with my current full backup weekly setup I am able to open my backup folder and locate all weekly full backups. All i need to do is locate the week in which the document contents were changed/deleted, open the file, copy and paste the missing/changed contents back to my current document.

Now I'm looking for an alternative to full backups, such as incremental, but I don't want the changed files to be overwritten and would need the same flexibility to revert back to the previous states.

mcnumpty23 · Mar 27, 2017

i dont use file history for documents that i need to keep more than 1 version of the same document --ie you continually add to document x then save it with the same file name so not certain if it would only keep the most recent version

thats assuming we are referring to a document where the name of the document stays the same but the contents alter

though file history is reasonably versatile its only one of my back up strategies

you can back up what ever folders you like with it rather than whole drives so it does have advantages there

can be set to run as often as 10 minute intervals right up to daily

can keep the back ups for a set period of time

or indefinitely

or until it runs out of space then it will delete the oldest

JackNaylorPE · Mar 28, 2017

saas1980 :

Remember that a backup is useless if it goes up in flames with the PC... so offsite storage is recommended.

We use a BlacX HD dock and a series of HDs for this purpose and rotate them out in the course of a month.

Days 01 - 07 - SSHD No. 1
Days 08 - 14 - SSHD No. 2
Days 14 - 21 - SSHD No. 3
Days 22 - End - SSHD No. 4

In a mirror, files do not exist inside a big compressed backup files. It's no different from you doing "copy / paste". If you want versioning, you can Save the file as Resume 0, Resume 1, Resume 2 with each change. But this depends on your goals and this would be as "I wanna keep forever". In most business settings versions of draft documents are not kept. Once sent out, that file is kept ... forever.

I have never looked to recover a file version that is > a month old. In the 7 or 8 times it's happened, it was an "A crap, I just saved over the wrong file" moment, and the old file is restored within 2 minutes.

Like most businesses, we uses in documents that are expected to go thru several revisions. Most offices, create a file called say "Dagwood Contract 2017"... again all internal revisions before it goes out are meaningless and are not kept. Once Dagwood sees it and it is edited, the new files is called say "Dagwood Contract 2017 Rev 03-27-17"

Another way is let's say a cost proposal and it's 5 pages long... when doing a revision. Those 5 pages are copied to pages 6-10, the date is kept and a "(Revised 03-27-16)" is added under the original date. Now all versions of the file are in the single file which is much easier to keep track of. All subsequent correspondence can be kept in the same file.

To keep a versioning system as you describe requires on to remember countless dates or a tracking system which would require an inordinate amount of T & E to create and maintain. Creating

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Incremental backups vs full backups? Help!

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ss202sl

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