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Backup Schedule

Backups are boring, when done properly. They’re boring when done wrong too, but you can’t tell the difference until the day comes – and it will – that you need to recover data. There’s nothing new below, but it may be new to you.

Over the last 40 years, a standard, minimal, backup schedule has been developed to address many of the shortcomings that non-standard backup schedules experience. There are too many reasons to describe all the issues that the schedule below solves. Know that straying too far (or any) away from this schedule places your systems and data at risk.

Below is THE STANDARD monthly backup schedule:

S M T W T F S

- – - – - – - 

D D D D D D M

D D D D D D F

D D D D D D F

D D D D D D F

• D = Daily differential backup – changed data only, unless you can perform full backups within your backup window without impacting users
• F = Full backups – this limits the number of daily backups to be restored if there is an issue that week to 6 or 7
• M = Monthly – mark the first full backup of each month as the monthly and store it
• If you have limited backup infrastructure, you may need to split the weekly/Full backups between multiple days like Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Since this complicates your overall solution, this should be avoided.

Backup Retention

Doing the backup is just a small part of this solution. You also need to retain the backup as long as it is useful, plus 1 extra copy.

• Dailies – keep at least 2 weeks
• Weeklies – keep at least 4 weeks
• Monthlies – keep at least 2 months, but consider retaining 6 months

1. Legal requirements may demand longer or shorter retention periods. If you can, keep all backups on the same retention schedule. Be extremely clear on the backup media what the purpose and retention is.
2. Test the backups. If you don’t test it, you’ll never know whether that hard work is actually working.
3. So we’re keeping a bunch of copies following this method. You’ll retain 5 full backups between weekly and monthly versions. If you have issues or get hacked, you’ll have ample recovery options. With all these copies, you understand that the lowest cost media is usually deployed.