Keeps making full backups
Hello, I have the latest version of the software and have chosen differential with only one full backup. But it keeps doing full backups. Any advice would be great. Thanks.


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Could we also see a print screen of the tib file names and sizes in Windows Explorer that are being created?
Are they "full" backups because they are named as full and large, or are they actually differentials that are just quite large?
A differential is any change since the last full backup. For example, if you took a full backup, then upgraded from Windows 10 1809 to 1903, all your differentials after that are likely to be as big as the original full (or larger). Making any partition changes in Windows or with another tool can have similar behavior and running defrag can as well. All of these things change where the data is located at the sector level and that's why it could end up being large for any subsequent differentials until the next full is run.
Personally, I would not select differential forever as the differentials will just continue to get bigger and bigger and bigger over time. Plus, each differential still relies on the initial full as well.
I don't know how often your backup schedule is, but if you're doing daily differentials, then I'd suggest probably no more than 2 weeks (schedule 13 diffs, don't use days to keep it simple). That gives you a new full about every 2 weeks and new differentials to go with it.
If you're doing weekly differentials, then I'd suggest probably 4-5 differentials (about a months worth) before a new full is created and new differentials start up that append to the new one. That way, you have a more recent full, which should provide a bit more stability in a worse case scenario if your differentials have any issues down the road. You don't want to get to a recovery point down the road (lets say a year), only to find that you can't restore because your 1 year old full got messed up somehow along the way and so none of the older differentials are usable either.
The longer you go without a full being added into the mix, the more risk is added into your recovery options. And, having multiple backup options (say a 2nd job to another disk or network location) from time to time to offset things also improves recovery changes (in case the first backup job media dies or gets corrupted). 3-2-1 is a common backup recommendation for home and business and it's generally the minimum backup plan for just about every backup software company since no single backup setup is full-proof.
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