GFS Rotation Scheme - Grandfather-Father-Son backup
Grandfather-Father-Son backup is an effective rotation scheme that allows to manage the copies in the long-term perspective while requiring minimal space in data storage and enables fast recovery.
GFS is a multi-level scheme, which connects multiple backup types cycles and rotates them in different time intervals:
- Grandfather is related to full copy which is performed with the longest time interval (a month by default)
- Father stands for a differential backup that is 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 biggest advantage of 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 ensures you with a fast data recovery - in the event of failure Xopero ONE needs to put together a maximum of seven versions.
