What is the GFS rotation scheme and when should I use it?
Grandfather-Father-Son backup (GFS) is an effective rotation scheme that allows managing the copies in the long-term perspective while requiring minimal space in data storage.
GFS is a multi-level scheme, which connects multiple backup types (full, differential, and incremental) cycles and rotates them in different time intervals:
- Grandfather relates to full copy which is performed with the longest time interval (a month by default)
- Father stands for differential backup that is performed more frequently than the full copy (by default once a week)
- Son means the most common incremental backup with the shortest time interval (day by default)
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. Same it ensures you with a fast data recovery - in the event of failure GitProtect.io needs to put together a maximum of only seven versions.
Read more: What are the backup schedule settings? How often can I perform backups?