Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2010
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Feb 26—Mar 4
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Daily backups run every workday except Friday, which is left for weekly and monthly backups.
Monthly backups run every fourth Friday, and weekly backups run on all other Fridays.
Monthly ("Grandfather") backups are full;
Weekly ("Father") backups are differential;
Daily ("Son") backups are incremental.
Parameters
You can set up the following parameters of a Grandfather-Father-Son (GFS) scheme.
Start backup at:
Specifies when to start a backup. The default value is 12:00 PM.
Back up on:
Specifies the days on which to perform a backup. The default value is
Workdays.
Weekly/Monthly:
Specifies which of the days selected in the
Back up on
field you want to
reserve for weekly and monthly backups. A monthly backup will be
performed every fourth such day. The default value is Friday.
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: 7 days (recommended minimum)
Weekly: 4 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.
Advanced settings:
To specify Advanced scheduling settings (p. 175), click
Change
in the
Advanced settings
area.
At all times, 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 weekly or a monthly backup remain in the archive for a few days past its
expected expiration date.
If the schedule starts with a daily or a weekly backup, a full backup is created instead.
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