Grandfather-Father-Son (GFS) Backup Rotation Scheme
The Grandfather-Father-Son backup strategy is an effective rotation scheme that allows you to manage your copies in the long-term while requiring minimal space in data storage and enabling fast recovery.
GFS is a multi-level scheme that connects multiple backup type cycles and rotates them in different time intervals:
- Grandfather refers to a full copy that is performed with the longest time interval (a month by default)
- Father stands for a differential backup, performed more frequently than the full copy (usually once a week)
- Son means the most common incremental backup with the shortest time interval (day)
An administrator separately decides how long to store full, differential, and incremental copies; however, this scheme requires all three types of backup in one chain.
The greatest advantage of the Grandfather-Father-Son backup is that you can store data for a long period of time while keeping a small number of versions. At the same time, it provides you with fast data recovery. In the event of failure, Xopero ONE is able to put together a maximum of seven versions.
