Knowledge base

The Backup list is the section visible in the middle column of the main window. It contains all the backup jobs defined that can be grouped into tags for easy handling. You can drag and drop backups in the list to re-order them.

Backing-up is a crucial process that everyone should do in order to have a fail-safe, for when the inevitable happens. The principle is to make copies of particular data in order to use those copies for restoring the information if a failure occurs (a data loss event due to deletion, corruption, theft, viruses, etc.)

The full backup type copies all selected files and folders. Full backup is time consuming (when compared to incremental and differential backup types), but it allows the fastest and easiest restore. It is the starting point of all other backup types.

Mirror backup is identical to a full backup, with the exception that the files can be compressed/encrypted only individually. Mirror backups keep only the latest file versions in the destination (no versioning). A mirror backup is most frequently used to create an exact copy of your data in the destination.

Incremental backup stores all files changed since the last FULL, DIFFERENTIAL OR INCREMENTAL backup. The advantage of an incremental backup is that it takes the least time to finish. The disadvantage is that during a restore operation, each increment is processed and this could result in a lengthy restore job.

When performing a large incremental backup to an FTP destination, it may take a lot of time for the first backup to complete (because the first backup is a full backup so all files will be included in it). If you have physical access to the FTP destination server, it takes less time to run the first backup locally, move the backup file to the FTP, and after that continue doing the incremental backups directly to the FTP destination. This article will explain how to perform this backup.

This step by step video presentation explains how to set up a backup schedule that ensures an adequate protection for a daily work routine.

This article shows how to create a full backup of the given sources to a specified destination using Backup4all. The current method can be extended to other sources and destinations supported.