In the information age, data is becoming the most valuable commodity. As such data is also a liability, as it is always in danger of destruction from many different and varied causes. Natural disasters such as fire, the activities of malicious software and hackers and hardware malfunctions are just a few methods through which you could lose your valuable data forever, and along with it, a lot of money. The best way to keep your data from getting completely lost like this is to keep plenty of regular backups of your system. There are many available methods for this, such as using an in-built tool that gets installed along with your copy of Windows, to using specific backup software, to using online backup services. All of these backup methods use one of two main backup methodologies. These two are:
Full data backup
This method backs up all your data to a single image. Everything which is included in your data storage medium, that is normally your hard disk, gets copied to the backup image. This means that every file, personalization setting, and registry entry will be backed up to an external location. Needless to say, Full data backup takes up a large amount of space, as every new backup you make will copy all your files and folders to the backup location, along with the personal settings. Full data backup is also known as the best method to restore on to a ‘bare metal’ setup, which means a computer with no software installed on it. This is similar to migrating all your software to another PC.
Incremental data backup
Incremental data backup backs up your data in increments. That is, it creates and initial backup to which it adds any changes you have made to the original files and folders at the point of backup. This saves a large amount of space as only the changes you make to the files are being added to the backup image. Incremental backup is also the faster method of the two, as backup takes very little time provided you have not made many changes to your files and folders. However, as there is only one backup image available, your backup is slightly at risk if corrupted. However, most software and online services which use incremental data backup have solved this problem using various methods.
