Backup types

Full, Differential, and Incremental Sector Backups

A full sector-based backup image includes all contents of a partition or a hard disk at the moment of its creation. If you roll back your system to the initial state on a regular basis, that’s exactly what you’re looking for. But if you want to have multiple backup archives of the same partition reflecting certain time stamps, unchanged data will inevitable be duplicated in all archives and take additional space on backup media. To tackle this issue there has been developed a supplementary technique called Differential Sector Backup.

A differential archive only contains data changed since the time of creating a full archive, which forms a base (or a parental image) in this case, thus considerably saving your system resources. It is realized by the exact bit-wise comparison of the previous partition’s data (saved in the parental image) with the current data (that is actually the partition itself). To restore this kind of backup you will require a full image and one of its differentials, what is very convenient.

This function is only available for single primary and logical partitions.

Incremental archive is a further way of optimizing the process of disk imaging. Unlike differentials, it may not only contain data changed since the time of creating a full sector-based archive, but one of its increments as well, thus allowing to save more time and the backup storage. The main principal here is the shorter the interval between increments, the less data is backed up. In general this type of backup is great except for one thing – when you restore an incremental archive there will be processed the initial full image and all increments between, which depending on the size of your backup chain, may take plenty of time. Anyway unlike backups, the restore operation is an emergency, which might not happen at all.

Paragon’s incremental sector-based archive employs an innovative technology that significantly improves the backup performance. Its core is in introduction of a special index file (.pfi) that keeps meta-information on the corresponding incremental image. It’s much smaller than the image itself and is used to calculate the difference between the current and previous state of a backup object. Thus, when you’re going to do an increment to a full archive of your system partition stored on the network, only its index file is processed over the net (a couple of megabytes at most), not the entire image, which minimizes both, the network traffic and backup time. Another new thing is change of a backup format – all increments are saved in .vhd (Virtual Hard Drive) containers.

Please note that the current version of the product has a number of limitations regarding sector-based increments:

• Increments can only be created for full archives stored on a local mounted drive or a network share;
• Increments cannot be created for archives of entire GPT disks;
• Increments can only be restored under Windows (if no restart is needed) or WinPE;
• Increments cannot be processed with the Synthetic Backup Wizard;
• Increments cannot be processed with the Check Archive Integrity Wizard;
• Increments cannot be processed with the Create File Complement Wizard;
• Increments cannot be browsed in Volume Explorer;
• Increments can only be used with our software;
• Increments cannot be compressed;
• Increments cannot be encrypted;
• Increments cannot be splitted.

Full and Incremental File Backups

A full file-based archive only contains files and folders. It is really efficient when backing up an e-mail database or particular documents, as no redundant data is processed. But if you care about maintaining a files history, you can benefit from one more supplementary technique called Incremental File Backup.

An incremental archive only contains data changed since the time of creating a full or incremental file-based archive. It is smaller and takes less time to create, but you will require the initial full image and all of its increments to restore the latest point of this kind of backup.

File Increment to a Sector Backup

File Increment to a Sector Backup is a unique technology on the market so far that bridges two principally different approaches of the data backup: the file-based backup and the sector-based backup. With its help you can now create a sector-based backup of your system to get it back on track in minutes in case of a virus attack or a hardware malfunction and then just make file-based incremental images to the previously created sector-based backup to keep updated only information that is critical for you. Thus you will considerably save your system resources.

Backup Storage

Our program supports several techniques of storing backup images. Let’s take a closer look at them all to understand what kind of storage is able to provide better security:

• You can place a backup image to a local partition. Despite the fact that it is the most convenient way, try not to use it. You can delete your backup just by accident or lose it as a result of a hardware malfunction, or a virus attack;
• You can place a backup image to an external mounted storage to provide for a higher level of data protection and system independence;
• You can place a backup image to a special secured place on the hard disk called the Backup Capsule that has an independent system layout (e.g. a separate partition) and will stay operable should the active file system be damaged. To avoid an accidental removing or unauthorized access of the backup data, this partition is hidden and thus cannot be mounted in the operating system. However it won’t help you in case of a hardware malfunction;
• You can place a backup image to external media (CD/DVD) to guarantee a high level of data protection as long as the backup media is kept secure;
• You can place a backup image to a network drive to stand a better chance of success in case of a hard disk failure. Moreover, by storing it on a special-purpose server you may be pretty sure nothing will happen to it;
• Finally you can place a backup image to an FTP server to provide a new level of system and data protection.

Known Issues on FTP/SFTP

1. You need to check out yourself Windows Firewall or programs of this kind let our program work with the required port (21 by default).
2. You cannot restore data selectively (with Restore Wizard) from an FTP/SFTP server.
3. You can browse an FTP server in the passive mode only.
4. Parallel access to several FTP/SFTP servers is limited – only one password for all servers is available.

Know how: General, Know how: Paragon
Tags: general, windows, WinPE

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