Backup Strategies Visualizer

// Backup Type Comparison

Attribute	Full	Incremental	Differential
What it backs up	Everything, every time	Only changes since last backup (any type)	All changes since last full backup
Backup speed	Slowest — entire dataset	Fastest — smallest delta	Medium — grows each day
Storage per run	100% of dataset	1-5% of dataset (daily change)	Grows from 1% to ~50% by week-end
Restore speed	Fastest — single set	Slowest — chain Full + all Incrementals	Fast — Full + one Differential
Restore complexity	Minimal — one restore operation	High — must restore in order	Low — two restore operations
Risk if one backup fails	No chain dependency	High — broken chain = data loss	Medium — lose only that day's diff
Best used for	Weekly baseline, critical systems	Large datasets, daily nightly jobs	Medium datasets, simple recovery SLA
Common tools	Veeam, robocopy, rsync	Veeam, Backup Exec, rsync --link-dest	Windows Server Backup, Acronis

// Storage & Time Calculator

Configure your dataset and change rate to see weekly storage requirements for each strategy.

Total data size (GB)

Daily change rate (%)

Retention period (weeks)

Full backup frequency

// The 3-2-1 Rule

Industry Standard: The 3-2-1 rule is the minimum viable backup architecture recommended by NIST, SANS, and virtually every enterprise security framework. It protects against hardware failure, fire/flood, and ransomware simultaneously.

3

Copies of your data

Keep 3 total copies: the production data itself plus 2 backups. A single backup is not a backup — drives fail at exactly the wrong moment.

Production DB + Local backup + Offsite backup = 3 copies

2

Different media types

Store on 2 different types of media. If both backups are on the same SAN and the SAN fails, you have zero backups. Diversity protects against device-class failures.

Local NAS (spinning disk) + Cloud storage (S3/Azure Blob) = 2 media types

1

Copy off-site

At least 1 copy must be geographically separated. Fire, flood, power surge, or ransomware can destroy everything at one physical location.

Local NAS + AWS S3 in us-east-1 (different region from your datacenter)

3-2-1-1-0 Extended Rule (modern)

● 3 copies total

● 2 different media types

● 1 off-site copy

● 1 air-gapped or immutable copy

● 0 errors on verified restores

The 4th digit (1 immutable) was added after ransomware groups began specifically targeting and encrypting backup repositories. Immutable storage (object lock, WORM drives, or Veeam hardened repo) cannot be encrypted or deleted.

// Recovery Scenario Simulator

Your server crashes. Which backup sets do you need to restore? Schedule: Full backup Sunday, Incrementals Mon-Sat. Select the failure day:

Select a failure scenario above to see the recovery plan.