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Best Practices for Backup - Connect IT Community | Kaseya
<main> <article class="userContent"> <h2 data-id="summary"><strong>SUMMARY</strong></h2> <p>This article explains backup modes and when best to use each.</p> <h2 data-id="description"><strong>DESCRIPTION</strong></h2> <p></p> <h2 data-id="issue"><span id="articleDetail:j_id404"><span id="articleDetail:j_id404:j_id405:customFields"><span id="articleDetail:j_id404:j_id405:sectionRepeat:1:fieldRepeat:0:j_id595">Issue</span></span></span></h2> <p>When creating backup strategies, there is concern which strategy is best to use. This article will explain each backup mode and which is best depending on your environment and requirements for recovery point objectives.<br><br><br><b>Backup Mode Selection</b><br><br>Unitrends supports a number of backup modes to ensure flexible protection policies for various types of data. A single job can use one backup mode, but Unitrends can leverage multiple backup modes across various jobs. The below table will help you choose the best mode for your strategy.</p> <table border="1" cellpadding="0" style="border-spacing: 0px;"><thead><tr><th colspan="1" rowspan="1"><b>Ranking</b></th> <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"><b>Backup Mode</b></th> <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"><b>Comments</b></th> </tr></thead><tbody><tr><td colspan="1" rowspan="1"><b>Best</b></td> <td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Incremental Forever</td> <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"> <ul><li>Provides the fastest backup window after the first full backup</li> <li>Recommended for VMware, Hyper-V and most file-level backups</li> <li>Reads the full disk once and then processes only changes going forward</li> </ul></td> </tr><tr><td colspan="1" rowspan="1"><b>Better</b></td> <td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Full / Incremental<br> </td> <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"> <ul><li>Recommended for Exchange backups</li> <li>Recommended if you want to control when full backups are taken for the purpose of backup copy management</li> <li>Recommended when you want to force a full read of all data periodically</li> <li>Inline deduplication ensures that even full backups only write changes to the backup storage</li> </ul></td> </tr><tr><td colspan="1" rowspan="1"><b>Good</b></td> <td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Full / Differential<br> </td> <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"> <ul><li>Recommended for SQL backups with additional transaction log protection for RPOs as low as one-minute</li> <li>Recommended if you want to simplify recovery of backup copies from tape at the expense of longer backup copy times compared to full / incremental</li> <li>Inline deduplication ensures that even full backups only write changes to the backup storage</li> </ul></td> </tr><tr><td colspan="1" rowspan="1"><b>Okay</b></td> <td colspan="1" rowspan="1">Fulls</td> <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"> <ul><li>Recommended for Citrix XenServer backups</li> <li>Recommended when RPOs are very long (one week or longer)</li> <li>Can be used with Incremental Forever if you only want full backups to be periodically copied to backup copy storage</li> <li>Inline deduplication ensures that even full backups only write changes to the backup storage</li> </ul></td> </tr></tbody></table> </article> </main>