Backup & Recovery — 220-1202 Study Guide

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Property	Full	Incremental	Differential	Synthetic full
What it copies	Everything, every run	Changed since the last backup of any type	Changed since the last full	Nothing new from source; server merges a full with its later incrementals
Archive bit	Cleared	Cleared	Left set	Not applicable (built from existing backups)
Backup time and size	Longest and largest	Shortest and smallest	Grows each day until the next full	No source read; assembled on the backup server
Restore needs	The one full set	The full plus every incremental, in order	The full plus the latest differential only	Behaves like a full: one set
Restore speed	Fastest	Slowest (many sets to replay)	Fast (two sets)	Fast (one set)

Cheat sheet

A full backup copies everything and clears the archive bit
An incremental restore needs the full plus every incremental in order
A differential restore needs only the full plus the latest differential
The archive bit is what separates incremental from differential
A synthetic full is assembled on the server, not re-read from source
The 3-2-1 rule: three copies, two media, one off-site
Against ransomware, keep one backup offline or immutable
Grandfather-father-son is a rotation and retention schedule
RPO is the data-loss window and it sets backup frequency
RTO is the downtime window and it sets the restore method
File History keeps versions of user files, not the whole system
A system image is what enables a bare-metal rebuild
The Windows Backup app moves settings to a new PC, not a disk image
A recovery drive reinstalls Windows but holds no personal files
Time Machine is macOS's built-in versioned backup
rsync copies only what changed and can hard-link snapshots
tar bundles files and can make incremental archives
cron is what schedules an unattended Linux backup
A dead disk needs a bare-metal restore, not a file restore
Only a test restore proves a backup is usable
A network share keeps only the newest system image; an NTFS disk keeps several
A system image restores the original partition layout, so a bigger disk leaves unallocated space

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Cheat sheet