An incremental backup saves all the files that have changed since the last full backup. The biggest advantage of an incremental backup is that it saves a lot of time when backing up large amounts of data. Incremental backups provide a much faster way of backing up your data then continuously doing full backups which take much longer and tend to be repeating a huge percentage of the same files each time.

During an incremental backup only the files that have changed since the last backup are duplicated. Thus, each backup adds only the new or incremental changes since the last backup. Incremental backups are useful when you are backing up a huge volume of data that would take a very long time to do a full backup each time. When performing a restore using incremental backups you will need the initial full backup along with each incremental backup thereafter.

Differential backup is another, similar backup option. The primary difference between differential backup and incremental is that a differential backup will include all files since the last full backup, as opposed to saving just the files since the last incremental backup. Differential backups only have one compressed file that gets larger and larger while the incremental backups have several compressed files that get smaller and smaller with each backup. To restore a differential backup, you will need to restore your last full backup and then your last differential so it's fairly quick and easy. An incremental backup can be more time consuming because you have to restore the full backup and then each incremental backup.

Most tape backup software allows you to run the backup process automatically. Your backup software will allow you to schedule your incremental backup. These same software tools can also be used for restoring your data.

To ensure your data is safe and sound in the event of a disaster it's important that you do regular full backups or use differential or incremental backups to be sure your backups are current.

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