In 2024, 149 zettabytes (ZB) of global data were generated. By 2028, this number is expected to grow to an anticipated 394 ZB. Even in 2025, there will be 0.4 ZB, or 402.74 GB of global data generated each day.
In an era experiencing this kind of exponential data growth, your organization must implement effective data protection strategies. It’s a necessity: According to Gartner, by 2028, 75% of enterprises will adopt a solution for backing up and recovering data stored both on-premises and in cloud infrastructure. This is up significantly from 20% in 2024.
Among the various backup methods, the incremental backup has emerged as a powerful approach that strikes a balance between efficiency and comprehensive data protection against disruptions such as hardware failures, cyberattacks, malicious insiders, or natural disasters. This guide examines the fundamentals of the incremental backup, types of backups, and using an incremental backup. We also provide you with best practices to get started on your data protection journey using this technology.
A traditional data backup, often referred to as a full backup, copies all data in a system or dataset, regardless of whether it has changed since the last backup.
By contrast, a differential backup only copies data that has changed since the last full backup, accumulating all changes over time.
While full backups require more storage and time to complete, they simplify restoration by needing only the full backup; differential backups use less storage and are faster but require both the full backup and the latest differential backup for restoration.
However, there’s another backup method to consider: the incremental backup.
An incremental backup is a data protection method that focuses on copying only the data that’s been created or changed since the last backup operation was conducted. Unlike your traditional, full backups that randomly copy all data regardless of modifications, incremental backups are more targeted and efficient. By capturing only the incremental changes, this process optimizes your storage utilization and reduces the time needed for backup operations.
An incremental backup begins with an initial full backup, which serves as a baseline. Subsequent backups are performed incrementally, capturing only the data that has been added, modified, or deleted since the previous backup. This creates a chain of incremental backups, each building upon the last. When combined, these incremental backups, along with the initial full backup, represent the complete state of the data at various points in time.
Incremental backups offer compelling advantages over traditional full backup methods by capturing only data changed since the last backup. Additionally, their streamlined approach supports cost-effective scalability for managing your evergrowing data volumes. Consider these advantages when you’re investigating incremental backups for your organization.
Optimized storage utilization: By focusing solely on changed data, incremental backups significantly reduce your storage requirements compared to full backups. This efficiency allows for more frequent backups without overwhelming storage resources. Incremental backups also enable faster backup processes, minimizing system downtime and enhancing data protection when you have growing data volumes.
Accelerated backup operations: Copying only your modified data results in faster backup times, minimizing the impact on production systems. Besides enabling more frequent backups, you also receive better data protection with minimal disruption. Incremental backups optimize resource use, making them ideal for when you are managing large or dynamic datasets.
Reduced network bandwidth consumption: Incremental backups minimize the amount of data transferred over your network, alleviating strain on network resources. This efficiency supports seamless operations when you have environments with limited bandwidth. Moreover, it enables faster data transfers, enhancing overall backup performance for distributed systems.
Enhanced backup frequency: The efficiency of incremental backups enables you to perform backups more frequently, ensuring more granular data protection. This approach minimizes data loss by capturing recent changes more consistently. It also supports rapid recovery, allowing you to restore operations quickly with up-to-date data.
The incremental backup process starts with a full backup of all your data, which forms the foundation for subsequent incremental backups. After this initial full backup, the backup software monitors the system, tracking changes to files or data blocks, depending on the specific incremental backup type employed.
When the next scheduled backup occurs, only data modified or created since the last backup is copied. This process repeats for each subsequent backup, with each increment capturing changes since the previous backup operation.
By focusing solely on changed data, incremental backups significantly reduce your storage requirements and backup time compared to full backups. This efficiency enables more frequent backups, ensuring better data protection with minimal system impact. Modern solutions often use technologies like Changed Block Tracking (CBT) to streamline the identification of modified data, further enhancing performance.
The forever incremental backup and versioning significantly enhance the efficiency and flexibility of incremental backups by optimizing storage, streamlining backup processes, and improving data recovery options. Together, they transform incremental backups into a robust, resource-efficient solution tailored for modern data environments.
Forever Incremental Backup: Forever incremental backup is an advanced method that preserves your data over time without requiring periodic full backups. This combines the initial full backup with a continuous series of incremental backups, reducing storage needs and backup time. The backup software intelligently manages these increments, periodically consolidating them to maintain efficiency without sacrificing your historical data.
Versioning: Versioning is a crucial component of incremental backup systems, enabling you to access multiple iterations of your data at various points in time. Each incremental backup creates a new version of the data, representing its state at that specific moment. Backup software manages these versions, allowing you to restore data from any point in the backup history, providing flexibility and granularity in data recovery scenarios.
Incremental backups are broken down into incremental file-level and incremental block-level backups. These backups significantly reduce storage needs and backup time compared to full backups, making them ideal for frequent data protection. By focusing on modified data, they ensure minimal system impact while maintaining robust recovery options for diverse data environments. Let’s look at these in more detail.
An incremental file-level backup operates at the individual file level within a system. This method tracks changes to entire files, backing up those that have been modified since the last backup. It is particularly effective for environments where changes typically affect whole files rather than small portions of large files.
Key features of incremental file-level backup include:
Straightforward file-by-file restoration: This allows you to quickly locate and restore specific files without rebuilding entire datasets. It simplifies recovery for individual file losses or corruptions.
Easy management of file versions: This enables access to multiple historical file states, facilitating precise point-in-time recovery. This is ideal for correcting errors or recovering from unintended changes.
Efficiency for systems with numerous small files: By backing up only modified files, you reduce backup time and storage needs. This makes it particularly effective if you have an environment with frequent small file updates.
An incremental block-level backup functions at a more granular level, tracking and backing up the individual data blocks that have changed. This backup is a highly efficient method for backing up large files where only small portions may be modified between backup cycles. The incremental block-level backup offers several key advantages:
Storage efficiency: By backing up only the changed blocks, incremental block-level backups significantly reduce storage requirements compared to full backups. This minimizes your data footprint, allowing for more frequent backups without exhausting storage resources. It also optimizes costs for when you’re managing large datasets in cloud or on-premises environments.
Faster backup times: Incremental block-level backups are typically much faster than full backups for large files with small changes, as only the modified data needs to be processed and transferred. This can greatly reduce the time required for backup operations. By minimizing backup windows, these backups reduce your system’s downtime and resource strain. This efficiency also supports more frequent backups, enhancing data protection without impacting performance.
Reduced network impact: By transferring only the changed data blocks, incremental block-level backups minimize network traffic and congestion during backup cycles. This is particularly beneficial in environments with limited network bandwidth or where backup windows are constrained. The reduced data transfer speeds up your backup processes, ensuring minimal disruption to network-dependent operations. This efficiency also supports seamless scalability for if you have distributed or cloud-based systems.
Incremental backups offer you a strategic approach to data protection, balancing notable advantages with certain challenges. While they enhance efficiency and resource management, their complexities require careful consideration during implementation. Understanding these trade-offs is key to leveraging incremental backups effectively for robust data security.
Efficiency to Lessen the Load: Incremental backups enhance efficiency by capturing only changed data, requiring less storage space and completing faster than full backups. They reduce network and resource congestion by transferring only modified data during backup cycles. This streamlined process supports frequent backups, improving data protection without straining system performance. Overall, incremental backups provide you with significant savings in both time and storage while minimizing the impact on network resources.
Reduce Network and Resource Impact: Incremental backups significantly reduce network congestion by transferring only data that has changed since the last backup, minimizing the volume of data sent over the network. This lowers your demand on network bandwidth, making it ideal if you have an environment with limited connectivity or distributed systems. By focusing on modified data, incremental backups also decrease the strain on system resources, allowing other operations to run smoothly during backup cycles. This efficiency supports seamless performance and scalability when you are managing dynamic datasets.
Instant Ransomware Recovery: Incremental backups are vital for disaster recovery, minimizing the time, storage, and bandwidth needed to restore systems following a failure. Incremental backups enable instant ransomware recovery by capturing only the changes made since your last backup, significantly reducing the time needed to restore data. They require less storage space compared to full backups, making frequent backups feasible for rapid data recovery.
By maintaining a series of incremental snapshots, your systems can be quickly rolled back to a pre-ransomware state, allowing recovery with minimal data loss. The efficiency of incremental backups supports fast restoration, which is critical for minimizing downtime. The streamlined process enables you to maintain business continuity during cyber threats.
Complexities Surrounding Incremental Backups: It is important to note that while incremental backups offer numerous benefits, they also introduce some complexities. The restoration process may require accessing multiple incremental backups to reconstruct the desired data state, which can be more time-consuming compared to restoring from a single full backup. The integrity of the entire backup chain also relies on the consistency and availability of all incremental backups.
Implementing incremental backup best practices ensures efficient and reliable data protection as you manage dynamic datasets. By focusing on changed data, these practices optimize storage, reduce backup times, and minimize network impact. Adopting standardized approaches enhances recovery reliability and system performance. Key considerations include scheduling, retention policies, and verification to maintain data integrity. To effectively use incremental backups for your organization, follow our recommended best practices:
Regularly verify backup integrity: Implement processes to periodically check the integrity of all backups in the chain to ensure they are intact and recoverable. This is critical as incremental backups rely on the integrity of the initial full backup and subsequent increments.
Use a hybrid backup strategy: Combine incremental backups with periodic full backups to strike a balance between storage efficiency and recovery simplicity. This helps mitigate the complexity of restoring from multiple incremental backups while still realizing the benefits of reduced storage requirements.
Implement efficient data deduplication: Utilize backup software with advanced data deduplication capabilities to further optimize storage utilization and improve overall backup performance. Deduplication eliminates redundant data across backups, minimizing storage consumption.
Establish clear retention policies: A crucial aspect of effective incremental backup management is defining precise data retention periods. This involves specifying the duration for which incremental backups should be preserved and determining appropriate intervals for data consolidation or expiration. By implementing well-defined retention policies, you can optimize storage utilization, comply with regulatory requirements, and ensure the availability of relevant data for restoration purposes.
Test restoration processes: To guarantee the reliability and effectiveness of incremental backups, it is imperative to conduct regular restoration drills. These tests should simulate real-world data loss scenarios, allowing IT teams to familiarize themselves with the recovery process and validate the integrity of the backed-up data. By consistently practicing data restoration, you can identify and address any potential issues, ensuring a smooth and efficient recovery in the event of an actual disaster.
Encrypt backups: Securing incremental backups is of the utmost importance, particularly when storing them in off-site locations or cloud environments. Implementing robust encryption measures helps protect sensitive data from unauthorized access, ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of the backed-up information. By employing industry-standard encryption algorithms and secure key management practices, you can mitigate the risk of data breaches and maintain the privacy of your critical data assets.
Monitor and adjust: Continuously monitoring the performance and effectiveness of the incremental backup strategy is essential for long-term success. Regularly assess key metrics such as backup completion rates, data transfer speeds, and storage consumption to identify areas for optimization. Based on these insights, you can fine-tune backup parameters, such as the frequency of incremental backups and retention periods, to strike the right balance between data protection, storage efficiency, and recovery objectives. By adopting a proactive approach to monitoring and adjustment, you can ensure your incremental backup strategy remains aligned with evolving business requirements and technological advancements.
By putting these best practices into play, you can fully realize the benefits of incremental backups, establishing a strong and reliable data protection framework. Through meticulous planning, regular testing, strong security measures, and continuous monitoring, you can safeguard your critical data assets, minimize downtime, and ensure rapid recovery in the face of potential disasters.
In today’s time of exponential data growth, incremental backups are a critical strategy for when you want efficient and reliable data protection. By optimizing storage, speeding up your backup process and reducing network strain, these backups maintain robust data security without hindering system performance. Incremental backups are essential for recovering from disruptions such as hardware failures, malicious insiders, cyberattacks, or natural disasters. Implementing best practices like regular verification, hybrid approaches, and encryption strengthens the protection of vital data assets. Adopting incremental backups prepares you to tackle the challenges of today’s modern data environment, guaranteeing resilience and swift recovery from potential disruptions.
Take control of your data protection by implementing incremental enterprise data backups to ensure efficiency and resilience against today’s increasing disruptions. Leverage the best practices to optimize storage, reduce backup times, and safeguard critical data assets. Contact Rubrik now to learn how we can help you build a robust, scalable incremental backup strategy that keeps your organization secure and prepared for the future.