What’s the Difference between Backup and Copy

Why use backup, not copy?

You must have been asked to back up the data to prevent unexpected loss. And you’ve probably been told to choose the right backup software to do so. For example, to perform virtual machine backup. Why not just copy everything? What’s the difference between backup and copy?

In fact, the key difference between backup and copy is precisely that you cannot really copy everything, but backups can. In terms of scope, copy is a subset of backup.

What is backup

A backup contains not only all the data, but also the system registry files, application configuration files, and all other hidden, invisible, and protected files. These cannot be copied manually.

Therefore, backups can keep the history record for tracking, and tend to involve compression, encapsulation, encryption, etc.

The golden 3-2-1 backup rule:

To summarize, Backup = Copy + Management. The management includes plans for backups, automated operation of tape drives, preservation of history, and logging. These backup options are not available with manual copying.

What backup options are available

Backup has many more freely selectable backup options than copy. They are usually provided by backup software to meet different backup needs and to increase efficiency and security, reduce costs. This is crucial for businesses.

Here I summarized some common available backup options according to different categorization criteria.

According to the amount of backup content

• Full backup: A complete backup that contains all of data you want to back up.
• Differential backup: Back up only the data that has changed since the last full backup. Restore requires the full backup which was the differential base, and the last differential backup.
• Incremental backup: Back up only the data that has changed from the last backup. Restore requires the full backup which was the incremental base, and all incremental backups.

According to the storage location of the backup files

• Local backup: Store the backup files in the local path.
• Remote backup: Store the backup files on the remote server, for example, a network share, or cloud.

According to the backup frequency

• Immediate backup: Perform backup once by manual operation.
• Regular backup: Create a backup schedule to perform backups periodically.

What’s the difference between backup and copying

So, what is the difference between backup and copy? Read this far, you must have already got an idea. In general, it can be summarized into 2 points.

• Content: A copy actually cannot really copy everything, but backups can.
• Options: There are many freely selectable backup options to meet different needs than direct copy.

An efficient and affordable backup software – AOMEI Centralized Backupper

As you can see, to protect your data from accidental loss, backup may be more comprehensive than manual copying. And the convenient backup options are usually provided by backup software.

Therefore, Here I recommend you an efficient and affordable backup software – AOMEI Cyber Backup. It provides simple processes of File Backup, System Backup, Disk Backup, Partition Backup, MS SQL Backup, VMware/Hyper-V Backup.

In addition, it has the following benefits.

• Regular Backup Schedule: With simple steps, you can quickly create a complete automatic backup task.
• Auto Cleanup: Automatically clean up old backup files that exceed the specified retention period.
• Centralized Management: A centralized web console to manage your VMware virtual machines regardless of sockets and hosts.

Next, I will demonstrate how to create a backup schedule for a complete system. You can click the following button to start a free trial.

Easy steps to backup a complete system with centralized tool

1. Open AOMEI Cyber Backup and navigate to the backup section. Click Create New Task tab.

2. Select System Backup and choose the system you want to back up.

3. Set up an automatic backup schedule. Select the type of backup (full, incremental, or differential) and backup frequency as daily/weekly/monthly.

4. Choose the backup destination (local drive, network location, or cloud storage).

5. Click Start Backup to initiate the process.

Summary

Many people have been confused about the meaning of backup and copy. In this article, I introduced what is the difference between backup and copy.

If you need a comprehensive backup software, AOMEI Cyber Backup can help you with File-based Backup, Disk Backup, System Backup, SQL Server Backup and many other features. It definitely worth a try!