In backup planning, including both full and incremental backups provides what benefit?

• A. Increases risk of data loss
• B. Reduces backup reliability
• C. Balances recovery time with storage requirements
• D. Eliminates the need for backups

Answer: (C)

Using both full and incremental backups balances recovery time with storage requirements. A full backup provides a complete baseline, while incremental backups record only changes since the last backup, which saves storage space and speeds up each backup. When restoring, you start with the latest full backup and then apply the incremental backups in sequence to bring data up to date, delivering quicker recovery without the heavy storage hit of many full backups. This approach keeps backup efforts practical and reliable, offering timely restores while avoiding excessive storage use. It doesn’t eliminate backups or increase data loss risk, and it’s more dependable than relying on full backups alone or on incremental backups without a solid baseline.