Types of Backups

Backups are created to avoid situations of losing precious data. Backups can be created on daily basis, weekly basis, or monthly basis. Backups prove useful at the time of data loss, data inaccessibility, software malfunctions, drive corruptions etc. Before we know the types of backups an individual can perform, the basic backing up process should be clear. Windows offer built-in backup facility which proves easy for the backup creations.

The Windows Backup utility provides various types of backups. One should carefully choose the backup type according to his / her needs. There are different combinations of backups available; Normal, Copy, Incremental, Differential, and Daily.

Normal Backups

A normal backup is the first step to any backup plan. When the Normal backup option is selected; all the selected files and folders are backed up and the archive attribute of all files are cleared. Normal backups are the most time consuming process but prove more efficient at the time of restoration than other backup types.

Copy Backups

A copy backup option is not considered as a planned schedule backup, all the selected files and folders are backed up. Archive attributes of the files are not cleared while this option is selected.

Incremental Backups

Incremental backups are the fastest backup process. An incremental backup backs up the files and folders which were last created or modified or changed since last normal or incremental backup.An incremental backup backs up files that are created or changed since the last normal or incremental backup. After the backup is performed the archive attributes of the files are cleared. Restoration of data from an incremental backup requires the last normal backup and all the following incremental backups. These backups need to be restored in the same manner as they were created.

Note: If any media in the incremental backup set is damaged or data becomes corrupt, the data backed up after corruption cannot be restored.

Differential Backups

Differential backups backs up those files which were created or changed since the last normal backup. Archive attributes of the files does not get cleared after taking the backup with the differential backup method. The restoration process of files from differential backup is more efficient than an incremental backup.

Daily Backups

All the selected files and folders which have been changed during a day are backed up with Daily Backups option. The data is backed up by using the modified date of the files and the archive attributes are also does not get cleared with this option.

Normal backup is easy, fast and effective backup process which can be performed every night. But at times the created backup files can also get corrupt, damaged, deleted or become inaccessible. In this case, MS backup recovery software can help to recover the lost backup files. The bkf repair software offered by various data recovery companies proves effective and result-oriented bkf file repair software.