Data backups are an essential part of your data safety and security, as they protect your sensitive documents from being lost, stolen, or destroyed. Also, additional data copies and backups provide more security against data breaches and other malicious attacks.
That said, there are many types of backups like full, incremental, and differential, and the choice depends on what you're backing up, available space, and organizational needs. In this article, we'll talk in-depth about differential backup, its working, benefits, limitations, and some best practices.
As always, let's start with the basics.
What is a Differential Backup?
As the name suggests, differential backup is a kind of backup where only the files that are changed from the previous backup are updated. In other words, the differences between the current version and the previous backup version are examined, and only those files that have changed are backed up.
This is a logical process that reduces the time and bandwidth required for backing up identical files.
How Does Differential Backup Work?
When you back up data for the first time, all the content is copied into your backup repository. After that, the differential backup tool you use takes a snapshot of the backup content and compares them against the files that have to be backed up now. Based on this comparison, only the new files and the ones that were changed are backed up.
Let's understand this working with an example. Let's say your organization has a differential backup scheduled every Sunday at 9 AM. The backup tool will take a snapshot of the existing content in the repository and will compare it against the files in your local device. It will flag all those files that were created or modified after the last backup. Finally, it will back up only the flagged files.
Note that differential backups are possible only after you do a full backup at least once.
Benefits of Differential Backup
Now, if you're wondering how this form of backup can benefit your organization, read on to know its benefits.
- Faster One of the most obvious advantages of differential backups is the speed, as only the modified content is transferred and not the entire set of files. This is why differential backups take only a fraction of the time of full backups.
- Reduced Storage Needs As you're not creating backups of entire drives or devices each time, the amount of storage space it needs is also lesser than full backups.
- Easy to Restore Restoring a system from a differential backup is faster and easier than restoring from a full backup, as only the changes have to be restored.
- Flexible and Versatile Differential backups are highly versatile and suit most business requirements and situations. You can even use them in combination with full backups, incremental backups, and other backup strategies to create a more robust disaster recovery plan.
- Cost-effective Differential backups use a lot less bandwidth and don't require as much storage space as full backups. All of these result in reduced network and storage costs.
Moving on, let's also look at some limitations, so you can make a balanced decision.
Limitations of Differential Backup
Before you decide if a differential backup is the right strategy, make a note of the limitations described below.
- Dependent on Full Backup Differential backups are highly dependent on a full backup, as differential backups are impossible without a full backup. Also, if the full backups are corrupted, the differential backups become useless.
- More Complex As an organization, you'll have to plan and implement both full and differential backups, and this can become complex. Over time, maintaining the differential versions may become cumbersome as well.
- Longer Recovery The time to restore content can take much longer when you use differential backup because you will have to identify the last full backup and restore it first, before restoring the differential backups. This could take more time and may need some technical expertise, as even small changes in the order can lead to data loss.
Now that you know the benefits and limitations, let's see which situations are ideal for using differential backups.
When to Use Differential Backups?
Though differential backups can be used in all situations, they give the best value for money only in some situations, like the ones described below.
- Limited Retention Periods Go for a differential backup plan only when you have short retention periods. In the long run, differential backups can become confusing and complex, and accessing the data you want might be cumbersome. If you still want to use differential backups, make sure to do a full back again, and restart the differential backup cycle, as this is the best way to gain more value from this backup strategy.
- Small Changes Differential backups are a good choice when only a small part of your data changes frequently. This way, it'll be easier for you to stay on top of the different backup versions, and can even make it easier for you to restore data when needed.
- Limited Resources If you have limited bandwidth or storage space that prohibits full backups, go for this differential backup strategy, as it will take up fewer resources to keep your data safe.
- Non-cloud Repositories When you go for a differential backup strategy for the long term, the number of backups can increase significantly, and this can take up more space. As cloud providers charge you for the space consumed, you're better off going for differential backups when your copies are on non-cloud repositories.
While you're not limited to the above situations, undoubtedly, you get the most value in such scenarios. We hope this helps you to decide if a differential backup is the right backup strategy for your organization.
Before we end, let's take a quick peek into some tips and tricks for getting the most out of differential backups.
Tips and Tricks to Make the Most of Differential Backups
Below are some simple tips and tricks that can enable you to get more value from differential backups.
- Understand the pace of changes in your file system before you go in for differential backups because too many changes are not conducive for this type of backup.
- Make sure you have sufficient storage space, especially if you plan to use the differential backup strategy in the long run.
- Use a combination of backup strategies to save costs and for faster restoration.
- Ensure that you have the technical know-how to restore from differential backups.
The above suggestions can streamline your backup strategy and can make it more suited for your long-term and short-term goals.
Final Thoughts
In all, backups are essential to protect your data and to provide business continuity for your organization. There are many backup strategies to choose from, and one of them is differential backup. In this strategy, only the files that have changed since the last backup are flagged and backed up, and this has both advantages and disadvantages. Also, the differential backup strategy is more suited for some situations than others.
We hope this information comes in handy to decide if the differential backup strategy is the best bet for your organization.
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