Understanding incremental and full backups and non stop backup

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truwrikodrorowrelupicugojestutroclulachosaswunuhospikigawakijosaswenomaruclojeueclikaspedrubewidebrisubrohutrurifruuagothunugekedrumucisiuobrobrecrupeslapuswosluprothethibakaslechurathikucli
Beginner
Posts: 8
Comments: 9

I do not understand Acronis non stop backup and regular acronis backup, nor full backups,
and incremental backups.

1) Basically, first I have a question about incremental backups. If I do a full backup
once of my main system partition, I would like for data to be updated incrementally
at later points in time so I can restore the system disk to whatever it was
based on some point in time (or version) using the base version and the incremental versions.

If I can do this what the hell is the point of doing a full backup more than once?
It seems to me that a full backup should only be necessary ONCE. Is it correct to think
that the incremental backup will take care of everything I need once ONE full backup is made?

2) Does Acronis nonstop backup backup data files and partitions both? What is the point of
nonstop backup, I thought that choosing incremental backups would allow you to restore
to a point in time anyways? The only difference seems to be that you can set the backups to occur
every 5 minutes which is much more frequently than the other incremental backup options.

Mon, 03/15/2010 - 19:40
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truwrikodrorowrelupicugojestutroclulachosaswunuhospikigawakijosaswenomaruclojeueclikaspedrubewidebrisubrohutrurifruuagothunugekedrumucisiuobrobrecrupeslapuswosluprothethibakaslechurathikucli
Frequent Poster
Posts: 2
Comments: 570

You are technically correct in saying you only need 1 full and then you can proceed with incrementals. The real-life concern is that if you have a long chain of incrementals and if any one in the chain develops a problem such as a sector going bad, every incremental past it is useless. For this reason it is recommended that a full is made at some suitable inteverval to keep the incremental chain reasonable. You have to decide what is suitable and reasonable for you. I personally only do full images of my OS/Apps partition but I do incrementals for important data files but not with a program like TI that uses container files where the broken chain problem is an issue.

Never used nonstop backup and have no interest in it but the idea is that you have a backup that is close to being right up to the moment as you point out. I personally doubt if most non-business users have a real need for this but OTOH we have all been burned when the power died in the middle of something important!

Mon, 03/15/2010 - 22:45