Just Not Soaking In....Incremental or Differential?

I've read the differences between incremental and differential, over and over and over and it's just not soaking in as to the differences. I've got 3 questions.

1. I have a full backup of my C drive on my external hard drive. I've got it set for incrementals every 2 days. Right now, I have a full backup and 2 incrementals. If I ever need it, what exactly does it do?.....Recover the full backup and THEN the 2 incrementals one at a time, all at once, or what?

2. I want a backup of everything on my C drive (i.e. programs, OP system, documents, pictures, home video, etc.). Should I do a backup of the C drive with weekly incrementals or differential?

3. Should I also do a "clone" for my programs? (I don't want to reinstall all of them).

This is a great program with so many options, I'm undecided? Thanks!

 

1. To get your drive back to the state of the latest backup you would select the last incremental and TI would then automatically restore the full, the 1st incremental and then the last one.

2. You can use either incremental or differentials with the full backup to achieve your goal. An incremental archives all of the changes since the last incremental (or full if it is the first incremental). A differential always archives all of the changes made since the full. To restore to your latest backup date, with the incremental you need the full and all of the incrementals; with the differential method, you only need the full and the last differential since it contains all of the changes since the last full. Differential backups tend to get larger as time goes on but they are quicker to restore. Also, if you have a bad incremental backup in the chain, all backups later than it are useless. People tend to like incrementals because they are fast and likely smaller.

Even though you only need the last differential with the full to restore your system, a bug in TI requires that all of the intermediate differentials be present if you wish to do a validate of your archive.

So basic rule is: Incremental - fast to make, slow to restore
Differential - slow to make, fast to restore.
I only do fulls.

3. If you are making an image of your drive then TI will restore it to another drive and it will be bootable. A clone will do this also but it is really intended to be used when moving from an old to a new drive but some people like to clone instead of make images. An advantage images have is the ability to keep more than one backup on your media if it is large enough. With a clone, you only have the one clone no matter how big your backup storage media is.

A Files and Folders backup is just that, a files and folders backup; it will not provide you with a bootable system if you restore such a backup even though it may have all your files. It is much slower than an image to make since it uses the file system rather than the in-use sector table.

 

Thanks very much for responding to my ignorant questions. You've made it much more clear to me.

I just ran off a copy of what you posted.

I also probably should change the names somehow so I know what is what?

(EDIT) Although it looks like they're okay maybe (i.e. 7-23-2007, 20072, 20073, 20074).....?

 

Thanks so much for the info .. Good explination Just a little confused on one thing.

Don't you mean If you have a bad "incremental" in the chain, all backups later are useless?

 

Ooops! You are correct, I mis-typed and will go back and correct the post.

 

why not just do full backups and keep things simple ?

 

I agree with doing full backups ... storage space is relatively cheap these days.

 

If I do a back up of my C drive then in the future delete files from my C then do an incremental back-up, I'm guessing that the original image will still be as large as it was as the deleted files won't be removed from my original image? Would differential be the same?

 

Yes, the original image is never modified, all the changes are recorded in the next incremental or differential.

Even if you Mount/open a TI archive with read/write access and delete files from the archive the original archive itself is not altered - the deletions are recorded in an incremental.

 

So, it seams it best to do a clean image each time where size is an issue?