Is the recovery from an incremental backup any faster than...

a full image recovery? I own B&R 12 and do assume the recovery process reloads the baseline plus all the changes up to and including the last incremental but thought I'd ask!

 

Since I don't know exactly how the program does things I can only give you a general answer.

I would agree with you that the base image gets loaded then the incremental's changes are applied. The same would happen with a differential. This would indicate a full image backup would be the fastest to restore. Just how much faster would likely be a function of exactly how much was added or deleted from the base image when the incremental was made.

The usual rule for incremental and differentials is:
Incremental, quickest to do but longest to restore since each one has to be done in order.
Differential, slower to do since all changes since base image have to be written to archive but quicker to restore since only one differential is restored.

Note that a base image with one incremental or one differential is the identical case.

 

Thank you!