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Unit 5 Written Assignment CS 3306

Anonymous

University of the People

CS 3306: Databases 2

Dr. Davut Incebacak

10th May 2023

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Unit 5 Written Assignment CS 3306

Backups are an important factor when handling data, as they protect against human errors,

hardware failure, virus attacks, natural disasters, and so many other causes that can result in

data loss and corruption. There are 3 main types of backup methods: full, differential, and

incremental. Full backups create at least one additional copy of all data files in a single

backup operation. Differential backups and incremental backups are very similar, they both

back up only the changed files, contributing to saving more time and disk space than the full

backup.

Now I would like to explain their characteristics and differences.

Differential backups involve backing up data files that have changed since the last full

backup. Let’s say that you do a full backup on Sunday. On Monday you backup only the data

that has changed since Sunday, and on Tuesday you backup only the data that has changed

since Sunday, and so on for the rest of the days until the next full backup. It is quicker than

full backups as fewer data is being backed up, but the amount of data grows exponentially

until the next full backup. It can become more reliable just to perform one more full backup

rather than continue making differential backups for a long time.

Incremental backups involve backing up the data that has changed since the last backup,

either full or incremental backup. Let’s say that you did an incremental backup on Monday,

on Tuesday you will only back up the data that has changed since Monday. So the amount of

data that is to be backed up is much smaller and faster backup. Meaning when the time

intervals between backups are smaller, then there will be fewer data to be backed up (Jean,
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2023). Using periodical full backups will improve the reliability and recovery speed, and is

the best practice in most situations.

In general, differential backups require more time and storage space than incremental

backups. However, when it comes to restoring data, differential backups are faster as you

need fewer data pieces to complete the recovery process. So, in the differential backups, the

business experiences less downtime when a disaster or hacking attack occurs. And the

incremental backups are suitable for businesses that wish to optimize the storage space but

have more downtime and slower business process resumption in case of failure (Acronis,

2022).

Let’s talk about backup failure. Backups may fail due to various causes: missing or damaged

backup media, misconfiguration, and so on. The backup programs might not be fool-proof

and disk usage may grow beyond the capacity of the backup media. Indeed the backup

system must be reliable, and no failures allowed. However, in reality, 60 % of backups are

not complete and approximately half of data restorations can fail (Elad, 2022). To avoid this,

backups must be designed to cover all the risk of data failures and has to be tested at least

once per month. Also, it is critical to monitor backups daily, and have an off-site backup.

Conclusion:

I listed above the characteristics and pros and cons of both incremental and differential

backups. It is important to determine which backup methods are best for a reliable data

protection strategy for your business.

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References

Acronis. (2022, December 22). Incremental vs Differential vs Full Backup - Definition and

Difference. https://www.acronis.com/en-us/blog/posts/incremental-differential-

backups/#:~:text=In%20general%2C%20differential%20backups%20take,to%20com

plete%20the%20recovery%20process.

Elad, B. (2022, August 14). 50+ Backup Statistics 2022- Backup vs. Recovery, Disaster

Recovery and Trends. Enterprise Apps Today.

https://www.enterpriseappstoday.com/stats/backup-

statistics.html#:~:text=33%25%20of%20those%20with%20a,of%20data%20restorati

ons%20can%20fail.

Jean. (2023). Differential Backup VS Incremental Backup - EaseUS Todo Backup. EaseUS.

https://www.easeus.com/backup-utility/differential-backup-vs-incremental-

backup.html