Backup Levels

• This article is for Windows only

Carbonite Safe Server Backup (CSSB) supports full, differential and incremental backups.

• Full backup - This type of backup makes CSSB back up all of the data associated with the backup set. Full backups are also referred to as backup level 0.
• Differential backup - This type of backup makes CSSB back up only the data which changed since the last successful full backup. This is also referred to as backup level 1.
• Incremental backup - This type of backup makes CSSB back up only the data which changed since the last successful full, differential, or incremental backup. This is also referred to as backup level 2 (or more).

Note: While differential and incremental backups help reduce the time and size of backup runs, they also create dependencies between different backup runs. For a full restore of all data, CSSB will need all the dependent backup runs. For a restore of some files in a File System Backup, CSSB can restore files contained within a specific incremental or differential backup without needing access to any other dependent backups.

Incremental backups are generally much smaller in size than differential backups, but they can make the restore process slower over a period of time. On the other hand, differential backups offer a good tradeoff between time to backup and time to restore. To utilize the benefits of both incremental and differential backups, you may combine both types in a single backup set.

A backup set that mixes incremental and differential backups could look like this:

• Do a Full backup every month
• Do Differential backups every week
• Do Incremental backups every day

Full, Differential or Incremental Backups

Your first backup should be a Full backup. Once it is complete, you can use Differential or Incremental backups to reduce the time and size of your future backup runs.

For more information on different backup levels, refer to What are Incremental and Differential Backups.