Incremental backups

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Incremental backups are database backups that save only the data that changed since the last backup. Because the system copies a small subset of the data, incremental backups require less time to complete than full backups. Use incremental backups to keep your backups current and reduce the frequency of time-consuming full backups.

There are two types of incremental backups:

Differential: Includes all the changes that are made to the database since the previous backup (full, differential, or cumulative).
Cumulative: Includes all the changes that are made to the database since the last full backup. Cumulative backups incorporate and replace any differential backups that were run since the last full backup.
Use cumulative backups to consolidate differential backups so that if you must restore data, the restoration requires fewer steps and less media.

The following figure shows sample backups, beginning with a full backup (shown as the letter A), then a series of differential (C) and cumulative (B) backups.

The backups in the previous figure comprise a backup set, which is a collection of backups that are written to a single location that consists of one full backup and any number of incremental backups.