Difference Incremental back up and Differential back up

Incremental: Files changed since last Full/Incremental backup. These backups will not take much time to complete, will be less in space hence less network bandwidth consumption and less media. But recovery will be a bit difficult because you need all the media including last full and all the incrementals after to do the full recovery. (Differential Incremental in NBU terms)

Differential: Files changed since last FULL backup. Will consume more time to complete when compared to incremental backups. Larger in space hence consume more network bandwidth and more number of media (comparing to incrementals). But recovery will be simple because you need only most recent full and differential backups to do the full recovery.  (Cumulative Incremental in NBU terms)

An incremental backup contains all changes that have been made since the latest incremental or full backup was created. If one full backup and several incremental were created, all of these backups must be saved in the same folder so that you will be able to restore the data. If one of incremental backups or a full backup is deleted, there is no way to restore the set, since all backups are dependent on each other.

A differential backup contains all changes that have been made after the full backup creation. To restore a differential backup,

Kiran, Manjunath - your explanation is correct for Backup Exec.

NBU has 2 types of Incremental backups: Cummulative Incremental and Differential Incremental.

I have posted a picture in the link mentioned above : https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/difference-between-incremental-and-differential-back#comment-6960291

The diagram makes the theory easy to understand....

Differential Incremental in NBU is same as Incremental and Cumulative incremental in NBU is same as Differential in backup exec or other backup software. Am i correct?

Marianne..Thanks for correcting

Hi Marianne,

Nice picture. I understood the difference betwen the differential incremental and cumulative incremental backup.