Backup type
User can select one of these backup types:
| • | Full |
| • | Differential |
| • | Incremental |
| • | Mirror |
The backup type can be changed from the Type page in Backup Properties, or from a specific type page, by checking the box to select that type as default backup type.
Full, differential and incremental backup types use zip compression to reduce the size of the stored backup versions.
The mirror backup type creates in destination an exact copy of the source file without zipping them.
Save storage space?
To keep the number of stored zip files at a reasonable number, the application provides three options: Limit number of file versions, Limit maximum number of stored backups to and Merge stored backup to maintain the maximum limit. These options either delete older stored backups or perform an internal merge to keep the number of stored backups or file versions under the selected limit.
The Limit number of file versions, Limit maximum number of stored backups to and Merge stored backup to maintain the maximum limit options cannot be used when the backup destination is on a removable media: floppy disk, CD, DVD etc.
By default the Limit number of file versions and the Limit maximum number of stored backups to options are not enabled. This means that the system will keep all the stored backup versions. If you choose to enable the Merge stored backup to maintain the maximum limit option, when the limit is reached the system will perform an internal merge between the older versions keeping the number of stored backups equal to the specified limit (the merge between zip files is necessary to keep at the latest file version from each zip file to be merged).
However when changing between Mirror and Full, Incremental or Differential, the older versions are deleted.
The Limit number of file versions option will delete from the backups only the files that have more versions than the maximum allowed limit, to keep the number of versions under the specified limit.
The Limit maximum number of stored backups option will delete the backups to maintain the maximum limit.
Other
If the Clear archive bit option is checked, the application will remove the Archive flag of the files that were added to the backup. By default Backup4all uses the current comparison criteria and the information from catalog file to detect if a file was modified or not since the last backup, which is more accurate than using only the Archive bit (as other backup programs do). However, if you want to backup files based only on the Archive bit attribute, you can change the comparison criteria from the Advanced->Backup window.