Acronis Backup for Linux Server - User Guide - Manual (Page 44)

44 Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2014
Keep backups Specifies how long you want the backups to be stored in the archive. A term can be
set in hours, days, weeks, months, or years. For monthly backups, you can also select
Keep indefinitely if you want them to be saved forever.
The default values for each backup type are as follows.
Daily: 5 days (recommended minimum)
Weekly: 7 weeks
Monthly: indefinitely
The retention period for weekly backups must exceed that for daily backups; the
monthly backups' retention period must be greater than the weekly backups'
retention period.
We recommend setting a retention period of at least one week for daily backups.
Backup type Specifies the types of daily, weekly and monthly backups.

Always full - all the daily, weekly and monthly backups will always be full.

Full/Differential/Incremental - daily backups are incremental, weekly backups
are differential, and monthly backups are full.
The first backup is always full. However, this does not mean that it is a monthly
backup. It will be kept as a daily, weekly or monthly backup, depending on the
day of week it is created.
A backup is not deleted until all backups that directly depend on it become subject to deletion as well. This is
why you might see a backup, marked with the
icon, for a few days past its expected expiration date.
Examples
Each day of the past week, each week of the past month
Let us consider a GFS backup scheme that many may find useful.

Back up files every day, including weekends

Be able to recover files as of any date over the past seven days

Have access to weekly backups of the past month

Keep monthly backups indefinitely.
Backup scheme parameters can then be set up as follows.

Start backup at: 11:00 PM

Back up on: All days

Weekly/monthly: Saturday (for example)

Keep backups:

Daily: 1 week

Weekly: 1 month

Monthly: indefinitely
As a result, an archive of daily, weekly, and monthly backups will be created. Daily backups will be
available for seven days since creation. For instance, a daily backup of Sunday, January 1, will be
available through next Sunday, January 8; the first weekly backup, the one of Saturday, January 7,
will be stored on the system until February 7. Monthly backups will never be deleted.