Full Backup Explained

In general, creating any backup starts with uploading a full copy of your data to backup storage, which serves as a reference point for subsequent incremental backups. However, it is not reasonable to create and upload a full copy of the backup dataset each time any changes are made locally. This is the reason a full backup is always executed with subsequent incremental backups.

An incremental backup is a backup whose successive copies contain only the part of the backup data that was changed since the preceding backup copy was made.

The way in which a full backup processes your data depends on the kind of backed-up data:

• As an image-based backup is created, a full backup uploads a complete backup dataset copy to the target backup storage (and creates a new backup version) each time the backup plan is executed
• As a file-level backup is created, the backup service re-uploads an entire file only if it has been changed since the last backup date (as in an incremental backup, a file is not re-uploaded if its modification date is earlier than the last backup date)

In some cases, for example, when there is an issue with running a Synthetic Full backup, forcing a Full backup which uploads all the data from scratch is required.

Forcing a Full Backup

1. Open the Backup Plans tab in the Backup Agent instance.
2. For the backup plan in question, open the drop-down list next to the Play button and click Force Full Backup.