Which of the following would BEST accomplish this task?

A technician is setting up a backup method on a workstation that only requires two sets of tapes to restore.

Which of the following would BEST accomplish this task?

A. Differential backup

B. Off-site backup

C. Incremental backup

D. Full backup

View Answer

Answer: A

Explanation:

A. Differential backup – Differential backups contain all changes made since the last full backup. Therefore, you would only need two sets of tapes to perform a restoration: the last full backup tape and the last differential backup tape.

B. Off-site backup – This refers to the location of the backup, not the method. Off-site backups can be full, incremental, or differential. Therefore, this choice doesn’t answer the question as to which backup method would only require two sets of tapes.

C. Incremental backup – Incremental backups only store data changes since the last backup, whether that last backup was full or incremental. Therefore, to restore from incremental backups, you would need the last full backup tape and then every incremental backup tape since the last full backup. This could potentially involve more than two sets of tapes.

D. Full backup – Full backups involve copying all data every time a backup is performed. Restoring from a full backup would only require one set of tapes (the most recent), but the trade-off is that full backups take more time and storage space than other methods.

Hence, for a backup method that only requires two sets of tapes to restore, a differential backup is the best option.