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Could Incremental Backups Solve Your Website Storage Problems?
Joella Dunn
Joella Dunn
John Turner
John Turner
Running out of storage space is a constant worry when you manage a website, and I know this firsthand.
At first, I was doing full backups of my WordPress site because it seemed smart to back up and restore everything.
Those full backups started eating up storage like crazy, and it felt like my digital storage was always full. Plus, each backup took longer and longer to complete, and it just wasn’t sustainable in the long run.
Then, I learned about incremental backups, and the core idea is to only back up what has changed since the last backup. Much more efficient, right?
Storage space became less of a headache, and it made backups more manageable.
Let’s explore what makes incremental backups so much better for website owners!
Here are the key takeaways:
- Incremental backups copy only changed data since the last backup, cutting storage use by up to 97% compared to daily full backups.
- Every incremental strategy depends on a full backup anchor. If that file is corrupted or missing, every increment built on top of it fails.
- Ransomware can silently infect your backup chain, making recent increments unrestorable. Off-site full backups are your safety net.
- A hybrid strategy (periodic full backups plus frequent incrementals) gives you the storage efficiency of incrementals without the chain risk
Table of Contents
What Is an Incremental Backup?
A full backup copies your entire site every time it runs, regardless of what changed since the last backup. An incremental backup copies only what changed since the last backup.
Think of it like editing a Google Doc. You don’t retype the whole document every time you save. You add a paragraph, fix a sentence, and the new version reflects only those changes. Incremental backups work the same way: the first backup is the complete document, and every backup after that saves only the new paragraphs.
That first complete copy is called the full backup. It’s the foundation. Every incremental backup that follows is a layer on top of it, recording what changed since the previous layer.
This structure is called the backup chain. Understanding it is the most important thing in this post because it makes incremental backups both efficient and vulnerable.
For WordPress sites, incremental backups fit naturally. Most sites change in small ways daily: a new post, a plugin update, a handful of new comments. There’s no reason to copy the entire site in every backup.
How Do Incremental Backups Work?
Understanding the chain is what separates people who have a backup strategy from people who just have a backup plugin.
The Initial Full Backup
Every incremental backup strategy starts with one complete full backup. This is the anchor point for every restore that follows.
If it’s corrupted or missing, every increment built on top of it is worthless. That’s the most important thing to understand about this entire approach. Before you run your first incremental, make sure that initial full backup is stored in at least two separate locations.
What Gets Captured in Each Increment
After the full backup, the system checks each file’s timestamp or archive bit to identify what’s changed since the last run. Only modified or newly created files get copied into the increment.
The storage difference is significant. A 2GB WordPress site with 50MB of daily changes could generate 50MB increments instead of 2GB full backups. That’s roughly 97% less data per backup run.
Database changes are included too — new orders, published posts, approved comments, anything that touched the database since the last backup ran.
How Restores Work
To restore your site to Monday, you need the original full backup plus every increment from that point through Monday. The restore process assembles them in sequence.
The longer the chain, the more pieces it has to reassemble. That’s slower than restoring from a single full backup, and it’s the main trade-off you’re accepting when you choose an incremental strategy.
The good news is that modern backup tools handle chain assembly automatically. You don’t have to stitch it together manually.
Types of Incremental Backups
When we talk about incremental backups, it might seem like there’s just one way to do it. But actually, there are a couple of different approaches.
They all share the same core idea (only backing up changes), but they can work a little differently under the hood.
Most WordPress site owners won’t choose between these types directly; your backup tool makes that decision. But knowing what each one does helps you understand what a plugin is actually doing and why some tools handle restores differently than others.
Regular Incremental
Each increment captures changes since the last backup of any type, whether that was a full backup or a previous increment. The chain grows until a new full backup resets it. This is the most common approach.
Incremental Forever (Continuous Incremental)
One initial full backup, then only increments from that point forward. The backup tool merges old increments internally to keep the chain from growing unmanageable. It’s the lowest-storage approach and it’s what tools like BlogVault and Jetpack use.
Reverse Incremental
Each new increment gets merged back into the full backup, so the most recent version of your site is always a complete copy. Restoring the latest version is fast. The trade-off is more processing work during each backup job.
File-Level vs. Block-Level vs. Byte-Level
Beyond the mechanism, incremental backups also differ in how precisely they track changes.
- File-level: copies the entire file if any part of it changed. Simpler, slightly less efficient.
- Block-level: copies only the changed data blocks within a file. More efficient for large files like databases.
- Byte-level: copies individual changed bytes. Maximum efficiency, but it’s mostly found in enterprise tools.
For most WordPress sites, file-level is sufficient. Block-level starts to matter for large WooCommerce databases where even small changes touch large database files.
Incremental Backup vs. Full Backup vs. Differential Backup
These three types show up constantly in backup plugin descriptions. Here’s what they actually mean in practice and when each one makes sense.
| Full | Differential | Incremental | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Backup speed | Slowest | Medium | Fastest |
| Storage per run | Highest | Medium | Lowest |
| Restore speed | Fastest | Medium | Slowest |
| Chain dependency | None | Low | High |
| Best frequency | Monthly | Weekly | Daily or more |
Full Backup
A full backup copies everything every time it runs. It’s the simplest restore experience, since you have one file, no chain, and no dependencies. But it’s the slowest to run and the heaviest on storage. Running full backups daily on any site over 1GB gets expensive fast.
Full backups aren’t obsolete though. They’re the anchor that every other strategy depends on.
Differential Backup
A differential backup captures everything that’s changed since the last full backup, not since the last backup of any type. That distinction matters: differentials grow larger over time. By day 6 of a weekly cycle, a differential may nearly match the size of a full backup.
The upside is a simpler restore. You only need two files: the last full backup and the latest differential. No long chain to assemble.
Incremental Backup
An incremental captures only what’s changed since the last backup of any type. It stays small as long as daily changes are modest. The trade-offs are a more complex restore process, chain dependency, and a ransomware vulnerability covered in the next section.
The Risks of Incremental Backups
Incremental backups are efficient. They’re also dependent on every link in the chain staying intact.
What Happens When One Increment Is Corrupted
If increment 4 in a 7-day chain is corrupted or missing, you can’t restore to days 5, 6, or 7. The chain breaks at that point and everything after it becomes inaccessible.
You fall back to the last clean restore point before the gap. Depending on your schedule, that could be the original full backup from a week ago.
For a WooCommerce store, that means a week of lost orders, not just yesterday’s. For a membership site, it’s a week of new signups, profile updates, and content changes. The backup plugin won’t warn you about the gap until you actually try to restore.
Running periodic full backups is the fix. They reset the chain and cap your worst-case exposure.
Ransomware Recovery
Ransomware encrypts your files. If your site is infected and you’re running daily incremental backups, each subsequent backup copies the encrypted versions of those files into the chain. The backups keep running. Everything looks fine from the dashboard.
By the time you notice the infection, your most recent increments may all contain ransomware-encrypted files. The clean restore point is the last full backup taken before the infection, which could be weeks back.
The fixes aren’t complicated, but they require deliberate setup. Store at least one full backup offsite and outside the active incremental chain. Verify backups by running test restores periodically, not just checking that a file was created.
Which Backup Type is Best?
For most WordPress websites, especially those that are updated regularly, incremental backups are often the best choice. They offer a great balance of speed, storage efficiency, and data protection.
However, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. It can depend on your specific needs, website size, how often your website changes, and your storage capacity.
Some users choose a combination of backup types (ex: using incremental backups daily and a full backup weekly or monthly) for added security and easier long-term management.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What are the three types of backups?
There are three main types of backups you’ll usually hear about: full backups, incremental backups, and differential backups.
- Differential Backup: This saves all the changes since the last full backup. It’s in between full and incremental in terms of speed and space.
- Full Backup: This is a complete copy of everything. It’s thorough but takes time and space.
- Incremental Backup: This only saves the changes since the last backup (could be full or incremental). It’s fast and saves space.
What are the pros and cons of an incremental backup?
Incremental backups are faster and save a lot of storage space, which means you can do backups more often. However, restoring can be slightly more complex as it might involve multiple backups. They depend on previous backups in the chain. If one is missing, it can be a problem.
Despite the cons, the speed and storage benefits usually outweigh the drawbacks for most users.
What’s the difference between a cumulative backup and an incremental backup?
Cumulative backup is another name for differential backup. Incremental backups are more efficient in terms of storage and speed because they only save changes since the last backup of any type. Differential/cumulative backups save all changes since the last full backup.
How often should incremental backups be done?
How often you do incremental backups depends on how often your website changes. If you update your website content daily, daily incremental backups are a great idea. If you update it multiple times a day, you might even consider hourly incremental backups.
For most websites that are updated regularly, daily incremental backups are a good starting point. If your website is very dynamic and changes very frequently (like a busy e-commerce site or a news site), then more frequent backups, like hourly, might be appropriate.
If your site changes very infrequently, you could do them less often, but daily is generally a good practice for peace of mind.
Is AWS backup full or incremental?
AWS Backup, which is Amazon’s backup service, supports both full and incremental backups. When you use AWS Backup, it uses incremental backups for ongoing backups after the initial full backup. This makes it efficient for regular backups in the AWS environment.
So, yes, AWS Backup does use incremental backups for efficiency after the first full backup is done.
Can ransomware infect incremental backups?
Yes. If your site’s hit by ransomware and you’re running daily incrementals, each subsequent backup may copy the encrypted files into the chain. By the time you notice, your most recent increments could all be compromised. Keep at least one full backup stored offsite and outside the active incremental chain, and verify backups periodically rather than assuming they’re clean.
What happens if one increment in the chain is corrupted or missing?
Any restore that requires the missing increment will fail. If increment 4 in a 7-day chain is corrupted, you can’t restore to days 5, 6, or 7. You fall back to the most recent clean restore point before the gap. This is why periodic full backups matter: they reset the chain and cap your worst-case exposure.
Stop Running Full Backups Every Day
Most WordPress site owners land in one of two places. They’re either running daily full backups and burning through storage without realizing it, or they’re running a weekly full backup with nothing in between and calling it good.
Incremental backups close that gap without the overhead.
They don’t replace full backups. They work alongside them. The full backup is the anchor; the incrementals are what keep you covered between anchor points.
Are you ready to start backing up your data on a schedule? Upgrade to Duplicator Pro for automatic backups, as well as drag-and-drop migrations, cloud backups, and disaster recovery!
While you’re here, I think you’ll like these other WordPress guides:
- How to Back Up a WordPress Site
- 3-2-1 Backup Rule: What Successful Website Owners Know That You Don’t
- STOP Making These Website Backup Mistakes
- WordPress Automatic Backup Plugins That Do the Work for You
- 10 Best Free WordPress Backup Tools
