differential vs. incremental backup w/ Veritas backup exec

[Boneless]

What is the difference between these two and is one more stable than the other?

[mairving]

There is no difference in stability. The only difference is that the incremental backup resets the archive bit where the differential does not. So that if you made a full system backup on Monday using the incremental method and you had to restore all of the data, you would first restore the Monday tape, then the tape for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Using the differential method, you would only need to restore the Monday tape and the Friday tape since Friday's tape would have everything that had changed since the last time the Archive bit was changed.

About the only difference would be that the differential method would be faster backing up but slower to restore.

[Boneless]

Thanks for your help. Quick response.