A systems administrator is managing a critical file server and has scheduled a full backup to run every Sunday. The administrator needs to select a daily backup strategy for Monday through Saturday. The highest priority is to ensure the fastest possible restore time in the event of a total server failure. Which backup method should the administrator implement?
Incremental, because the daily backup jobs are smaller and complete more quickly.
Differential, because restoring only requires the last full backup and the single most recent differential backup.
Snapshot, because it creates an instantaneous point-in-time copy on the same storage array.
Archive, because it is designed for long-term retention and reduces the load on the backup server.
The correct answer is a differential backup. A differential backup copies all data that has changed since the last full backup. To perform a restore, an administrator only needs two backup sets: the last full backup and the most recent differential backup. This makes the restore process significantly faster and less complex than an incremental backup restore, which would require the last full backup plus every single incremental backup made since.
Incremental backups are incorrect because, while they are faster to create each day, they are slower to restore. Restoring from an incremental strategy requires the last full backup and every subsequent incremental backup, increasing the time and complexity of the recovery operation.
Snapshots are incorrect in this scenario because they are typically stored on the same storage system as the source data. This makes them unsuitable for recovery from a total server or storage array failure, as the snapshot would be lost along with the primary data.
Archive backups are used for long-term data retention of unchanging data, often for compliance or legal reasons, not for daily operational recovery. The restore process from an archive is not optimized for speed.
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