The smart backup type will combine full, differential and incremental types with cleanup actions in order to efficiently manage the stored backup versions according with the free disk space in destination or the maximum allowed space set by the user.
Smart Backup Overview
This backup type will automatically decide which is the best action to perform when a new backup will be executed.
By default, the smart backup type is limited to use only 80% of the destination free disk space. If you want to use the entire destination drive for backup storage, you can select the Use the entire available destination space option.
Usage Example
As an example we configured a backup job with the Smart backup type and limit the backup size in destination to 20 GB. The other settings are set as default.
- Backup no.1 will be a full of 10 GB.
- Backup no.2 will include the modified files and will be an incremental of 4 GB.
- Backup no.3 where 4 GB of files are modified, will trigger a full backup as the total incremental size is larger than 50% of the full size.
- Backup no.4 where 4 GB of files are modified, will delete backup no.2 and will create a new incremental including all modified files since backup no.3. In destination there will be 3 backup versions: 1, 3 and 4.
- Backup no.5 where 3 GB of files are modified, will delete backup no.1 and will create a new incremental with all modified files since since backup no.4. In destination there will be 3 backup versions: 3, 4 and 5.
Advantages and disadvantages
Advantages:
- It automatically decides the best backup type to be executed
- The free disk space in destination is properly managed, so you won't get out of space errors
Disadvantages:
- You cannot select how many backup/file versions to be saved