Unitrends recommends using an incremental forever strategy for file-level backups. With this strategy, a full is run one time, followed by incrementals thereafter at the frequency that best suits your environment. The system then synthesizes fulls and differentials locally from the incrementals to ensure quick restores. These synthetic backups are also used for archiving and legacy vaulting, as incremental backups do not archive or vault directly. For more information on synthetic backups, see Synthetic backup and KB 3560.
Incremental forever is supported on Unitrends Backup virtual systems as well as the Recovery-212 and later physical systems. To use the incremental forever strategy, it is recommended that the backup system be on the latest release.
Unitrends supports a variety of other strategy options, described here:
|
Objective |
Strategy |
|---|---|
|
Your tolerance for data loss is measured in a day or more |
Use incremental forever or a weekly full backup with daily differential backups. |
|
Your tolerance for data loss is measured in minutes or hours |
Use incremental forever or a weekly full backup with daily differential and hourly incremental backups. |
|
Your backups need to complete within a few hours during the week but can run continuously on the weekend |
Use incremental forever or a weekly full backup with daily differential backups. |
|
You need to control when full backups run |
If system resources are taxed and you would like to control when a full backup runs, use a weekly full backup with daily differential and/or incremental backups. Keep in mind that synthetic backups are system-side only and do not impact the client or networks. |