Full vs. Differential vs. Incremental Backup: What's the Difference?

It’s obvious that enterprises need to back up their data regularly -- but what kind of backups? Watch to learn more about full, differential, and incremental backups.

There are many kinds of backup techniques, but the three primary types of data backup include full backups, differential backups, and incremental backups. A full backup is quite self-explanatory -- it’s when an entire data set is backed up at once, either to the cloud, magnetic tapes, HDD, or other form of storage.

A full backup is the most reliable method, but it’s time consuming and requires a lot of bandwidth. Differential and incremental backups save time by only copying new data since the last full backup.

How often does your organization schedule backups? What kinds? Let us know in the comments, and hit that like button, too.

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[nathanroberts]

Finally, someone who actually explains differential vs incremental well. For anyone else on a long Google spree, differential saves the difference between the last full backup, incremental saves the difference between the last partial backup. The video explains it a bit better though, so watch that too.

[kadaykamara]

Well said. So simple and straightforward. Thank you so much

[nj]

Thank you. I understood the exact concept only because of the graphical representation.

[techguy]

thank you so much, I have been scratching my head about this topic for the past week

[Le_Sourpuss]

You forgot to mention the stress to the drives and consequent reduction of their lifespan is much bigger with full and differential backups than it is with incremental since they are needlessly backing up things that were already backed up.

[_Ali]

the best video i've seen so far 10/10 🌟

[parameshvarmathavan]

Very thanks. Clear and short explanation. easy to understand

[olubodunodumosu]

Thank you. Better explanation than ChatGpt gave. I understand it now.

[hugeslacker]

So if you have a file corruption in an incremental backup, more data would be lost than if you had a file corrupted in a differential backup?

[interproservice]

If I back up daily for a year, with differential I have to recover 2 backups while with incremental 1 full and 365 more backups?

[engchoontan]

when applied to lossless audio formats
= incremental allow efficiency until a certain-point(algorithm.sss) when it become inefficient
= switch to mono
= embed another algorithm for 2 part incremental
= apply as file-system
= counter check with database efficiency (many established methods/benhmarks)for multi-channel audio and video and HDMI 1.4 with 4k and 11.1 channels

review and rebuild strategy for different file types and congruent-contiguous ... hahaha snobs hate calloc

[shivayvr]

Do incremental back is good for sql databases

[gamesturbator]

So differential backups bac kup the other backups from the prior day? What happens if there's a whole week of daily backups? Would differential backup back up all of those combined?

[Mangokyaw]

lol i see no difference in between pls explain it more clearly.

[SeekerofUniverse]

background music sucks video is good but music completely threw me off