Differential backup or Incremental backup?

Neither. Full backups are the best. Given a choice, differential is better, but depends on you. I feel incremental will be faster and will consume less space.

I use incremental backups since I have to finish my backups quickly, and Windows Server backup offers no other options. We have been using it for the past 3 years without issues.

Oh, and BTW is this because of World Backup Day?

How do they work?

I am copy pasting from a Google'd Search

The differences between a Full, Incremental, or Differential backup
NovaBACKUP
Last Updated: Dec 15, 2014 06:48AM PST
Full Backup: In the NovaBACKUP Client, this option is for a complete back up of all files selected in their entirety.


Example: Folder C:\Photos contains seven photos:

On the first day of full backups, the following files are backed up:

C:\Photos\Img_0001.crw
C:\Photos\Img_0002.crw
C:\Photos\Img_0003.crw
C:\Photos\Img_0004.crw
C:\Photos\Img_0005.crw
C:\Photos\Img_0006.crw
C:\Photos\Img_0007.crw

On Day 2 you edit the following photos:

C:\Photos\Img_0003.crw
C:\Photos\Img_0006.crw

On Day 3 you edit the following photos:

C:\Photos\Img_0001.crw
C:\Photos\Img_0002.crw
C:\Photos\Img_0007.crw



Note: This would only be possible for the files that are selected; any files that are not selected will not be backed up.


Incremental Backup: In the NovaBACKUP Client, this option is for backing up the changes to the full backup at file level.

Example:

With an incremental backup you will end up with the following files:

Day 1 File - Full backup (Contains all 7 images)
Day 2 File - Contains only files changed since Day 1 (Img_0003.crw & Img_0006.crw)
Day 3 File - Contains only files changed since Day 2 (Img_0001.crw & Img_0002.crw & Img_0007.crw)

Note: This would only be possible for the files that are selected; any files that are not selected will not be backed up.


Differential Backup: In the NovaBACKUP Client, this option is for backing up file level changes but the file size keeps growing every day.

Example:
With a differential backup you will end up with the following files:

Day 1 File - Full backup (Contains all 7 images)
Day 2 File - Contains all files changed since Day 1 (Img_0003.crw & Img_0006.crw)
Day 3 File - Contains all files changed since Day 1 (Img_0001.crw & Img_0002.crw & Img_0003.crw & Img_0006.crw & Img_0007.crw)

The next time you perform a "Full" backup the "all files changed since Day 1" date will reset.

To restore files from Incremental and Full backup, the user would need the Full and every Incremental backup for that period. For a Full and Differential restore the user would only need the Full Backup and the last Differential backup.
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Link : http://novabackup.novastor.com/blog/differential-incremental-backup/

Another Link : http://www.acronis.com/en-us/blog/p...business-backup-and-recovery-world-backup-day
 
Well, what is the scenario? different scenarios require different styles of backup. Look up RPO and RTO (recovery point objective and recovery time objective) it also depends on how much you want to spend on disaster recovery.
To answer OP's question, differential and incremental mean the same. :)

The best tool if you want file based backups is rsync. almost all of the commercially available backup tools use rsync internally.

but if you work in Linux, I would suggest using COW filesystems like ZFS or BTRFS (butterfs) and issue snapshots every now and then and backup the snapshots. that would be differential backups without in a simple package.
 
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Whether one or the other is better depends on your priorities and available resources.

Differential backups require more disk space than incremental backups but they can be restored faster. If you have adequate space for differential backups and time to restore is your priority differential backups are a good idea.

Incremental backups require less disk space at the backup destination but the time to restore is longer than a differential backup. You need to restore each incremental backup from the latest full backup to restore data. If you are short on disk space at backup destination and time to restore is not a priority stick to incremental backup.
 
I would recommend incremental backup over differential mainly because incremental takes up much less time to back your files up as it has to backup only incremental changes since last backup.

But on the other hand Differential has to backup all the files since the last full backup which is of no point for personal use.

If you talk about restore , let me ask you one question how many times do you have to restore in daily life.

Trust me I am a Backup Engineer.
 
in my opinion, differential backup is a little tricky because although you save bandwidth on transfer which is becoming a non issue these days. you also need to do DR drills every now and then. imagine that you assume all the data you backed up is good but after the disaster strikes if the backups dont work.. cough cough gitlab
 
Wow! That a lot of answers. Thank you for your replies. Going through your replies several times.

So... as I understand differential backup and incremental backup are different from each other. Also, as i can see incremental backup is better according to the replies.
The next question appeared in my mind... I am confused about a backup solution for windows system. Is it based on PHP?
I am sorry if my question looks silly. I am new to all of that things :oops::)
 
bobbyprajan said:
Whether one or the other is better depends on your priorities and available resources.

Differential backups require more disk space than incremental backups but they can be restored faster. If you have adequate space for differential backups and time to restore is your priority differential backups are a good idea.

Incremental backups require less disk space at the backup destination but the time to restore is longer than a differential backup. You need to restore each incremental backup from the latest full backup to restore data. If you are short on disk space at backup destination and time to restore is not a priority stick to incremental backup.
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Thanks for the detailed reply. How much more space differential backup require?
 
erikaflower said:
Thanks for the detailed reply. How much more space differential backup require?
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That would depend on how much changes are there in a day (assuming daily backup). In a differential backup, you add the incremental difference of each day from the last full backup till the next full backup. Hence it takes more space than an incremental backup.
 
erikaflower said:
I am confused about a backup solution for windows system.
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The simplest solution I can think of would be:
1. install virtual box and move the windows installation into a virtual machine. (there are some p2v tools available to do that if you dont want to reinstall)
2. virtual box will give you options to take snapshots and you can also automate them if you know some scripting.
3. snapshots are always differential and I think it creates a new file for every snapshot.
4. Now, all you need is to backup the new files whenever you take the snapshot. I would do this using rsync but then since you are in windows, that would require some creativity.

if you are using windows server operating systems, I would suggest same strategy with hyperv.
 
bobbyprajan said:
That would depend on how much changes are there in a day (assuming daily backup). In a differential backup, you add the incremental difference of each day from the last full backup till the next full backup. Hence it takes more space than an incremental backup.
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OK. Thanks! Well, I assume that there will be a lot of changes in a day. But I got it, the main point to remember that differential backup takes more space than incremental backup
 
erikaflower said:
what if I do not know scripting? Is it big problem?
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well, you can do it with scheduled tasks in windows, but then you will need a guided tutorial to do it. with lots of screenshots/screen captures.
if you dont need automated backups, then its as simple as right clicking the virtual machine and selecting "create snapshot" and then going into the folder where the virtual machine is stored; and then manually copying the new snapshot to the backup location. you know... right click, copy, navigate to backup, paste... like that.

if its linux, you cant do cron jobs without scripting... :)
 
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