{"id":2542,"date":"2018-03-29T16:08:37","date_gmt":"2018-03-29T20:08:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/backup-disaster-recovery\/?p=2542"},"modified":"2018-03-29T16:08:51","modified_gmt":"2018-03-29T20:08:51","slug":"whats-the-difference-between-full-incremental-and-differential-backups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/backup-disaster-recovery\/whats-the-difference-between-full-incremental-and-differential-backups\/","title":{"rendered":"What&#8217;s the Difference Between Full, Incremental, and Differential Backups?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2543\" src=\"https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/backup-disaster-recovery\/files\/2018\/03\/Whats-the-Difference-Between-Full-Incremental-and-Differential-Backups.jpg\" alt=\"Whats the Difference Between Full Incremental and Differential Backups\" width=\"800\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/backup-disaster-recovery\/files\/2018\/03\/Whats-the-Difference-Between-Full-Incremental-and-Differential-Backups.jpg 800w, https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/backup-disaster-recovery\/files\/2018\/03\/Whats-the-Difference-Between-Full-Incremental-and-Differential-Backups-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/backup-disaster-recovery\/files\/2018\/03\/Whats-the-Difference-Between-Full-Incremental-and-Differential-Backups-768x384.jpg 768w, https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/backup-disaster-recovery\/files\/2018\/03\/Whats-the-Difference-Between-Full-Incremental-and-Differential-Backups-540x270.jpg 540w, https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/backup-disaster-recovery\/files\/2018\/03\/Whats-the-Difference-Between-Full-Incremental-and-Differential-Backups-162x81.jpg 162w, https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/backup-disaster-recovery\/files\/2018\/03\/Whats-the-Difference-Between-Full-Incremental-and-Differential-Backups-360x180.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/>When discussing backups, you may have heard the terms \u201cfull,\u201d \u201cincremental,\u201d and \u201cdifferential\u201d thrown around. But what do those words mean in conjunction with backups? Here, we\u2019re going to explain the differences between each kind of backup in an effort to make choosing a plan easier for you and your organization.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><div class=\"widget\"><div class=\"aside-card\">\t\t\t<div class=\"textwidget\"><p><a class=\"speedbump-1\" href=\"https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/backup-disaster-recovery\/get-a-free-backup-and-disaster-recovery-buyers-guide\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1682\" title=\"Data Protection Vendor Map\" src=\"https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/backup-disaster-recovery\/files\/2021\/05\/21_BUDR_SB_BG_Blue_800.gif\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div><\/div><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Full Backup<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A full backup is the easiest to explain, as it is exactly what it sounds like. When you perform a full backup, you produce a complete copy of your whole data set. While full backups often offer the highest level of protection, they are usually only done periodically. This is because they take such a long time, as the amount of data being backed up is the greatest with this method.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Incremental Backup<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As a way to remedy the amount of time taken up by full backups, incremental backups were introduced. With this approach, you only back up the data that changed since the last backup was performed. While incremental backups solve the problem full backups have, they have a problem of their own. Incremental backups can take a long time to restore. This is because, if you were to perform a restoration of specific backup, you would have to first restore each incremental backup previous to the one you intended to restore individually.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Differential Backup<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Differential backups are like incremental backups in that they both back up data which has changed. However, while incremental backups solely contain the changed data from the previous backup, differential backups include the data that has changed since the most recent full backup. For this reason, differential backups take less time to restore than incremental ones. However, as you continue to run differential backups, they will hold a larger amount of data than an incremental, which can cause a strain on your storage space.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Each kind of backup comes with its pros and cons. Depending on the capabilities of your organization, time or storage may or may not be an issue, but knowing what each\u00a0kind of backup entails is important.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"hr hr\"><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><div class=\"widget\"><div class=\"aside-card\">\t\t\t<div class=\"textwidget\"><p><a class=\"speedbump-3\" href=\"https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/backup-disaster-recovery\/data-protection-vendor-map\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1682\" title=\"Data Protection Vendor Map\" src=\"https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/backup-disaster-recovery\/files\/2020\/02\/DP_VM_SB_800.jpg\" alt=\"Download Link to Data Protection Vendor Map\" width=\"800\" height=\"100\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div><\/div><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When discussing backups, you may have heard the terms \u201cfull,\u201d \u201cincremental,\u201d and \u201cdifferential\u201d thrown around. But what do those words mean in conjunction with backups? Here, we\u2019re going to explain the differences between each kind of backup in an effort to make choosing a plan easier for you and your organization. Full Backup A full [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":2543,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[24,58,665],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What&#039;s the Difference Between Full, Incremental, and Differential Backups?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Each kind of backup comes with its pros and cons. We\u2019re going to explain the differences between these backups to make choosing a solution easier for you!\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/backup-disaster-recovery\/whats-the-difference-between-full-incremental-and-differential-backups\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tess Hanna\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/backup-disaster-recovery\/whats-the-difference-between-full-incremental-and-differential-backups\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/backup-disaster-recovery\/whats-the-difference-between-full-incremental-and-differential-backups\/\",\"name\":\"What's the Difference Between Full, Incremental, and Differential Backups?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/backup-disaster-recovery\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/backup-disaster-recovery\/whats-the-difference-between-full-incremental-and-differential-backups\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/backup-disaster-recovery\/whats-the-difference-between-full-incremental-and-differential-backups\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/backup-disaster-recovery\/files\/2018\/03\/Whats-the-Difference-Between-Full-Incremental-and-Differential-Backups.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-03-29T20:08:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-03-29T20:08:51+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/backup-disaster-recovery\/#\/schema\/person\/1915d169a2244d0703ac9749676fe5cd\"},\"description\":\"Each kind of backup comes with its pros and cons. 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