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Creating differential backups

In addition to complete images, the Image Service can also be used to create differential backups.

  • With a complete image, all the data to be backed up is saved each time.
  • With a differential backup, only the data that has changed or been added since the last complete image is backed up. Differential backups always belong to a previously created complete image.

Info

You can only create differential backups if you have stored the image on the network drive, i.e. if you have selected one of the transfer paths Device -> Storage or Device -> Temporary storage -> Storage.

Procedure:

  1. In the Job configuration area in the Differential backup section, activate the checkbox Differential backup enabled.
    Figure: Job configuration, Differential backup section
  2. In the Max differential backups dropdown list, you can set how many differential backups should be created between two complete images. The default value is 7. If the job to create an image runs once a day, a complete image would be created once a week and differential backups would be created on the remaining days of the week.

The value entered in the Number of backups retained (rollover) field in the job configuration refers only to complete images. If an older complete image is overwritten by a new one, the associated differential backups are also deleted.

To create security coverage for a month with daily running jobs, set the number of differential backups to 7 and the number of retained backups to 4.