Your organisation performs a normal backup of all data once a week on a Windows 2000 server. In addition, you want to back up data on each day between these weekly normal backups, while minimising the amount of time required to perform the daily backup operations. Which backup type should you use on the days between the normal backups?

Introduction / Context:
Windows 2000 Backup supports several backup types, including normal, incremental, differential and copy. Each type balances backup time, storage usage and restore complexity differently. When designing a backup strategy, administrators must choose the backup type that meets their performance and recovery objectives. This question focuses on minimising the time required for daily backups between weekly full backups.

Given Data / Assumptions:

• A normal (full) backup is performed once each week.
• Additional backups are needed on the days between full backups.
• The primary goal for those daily backups is to minimise backup time.
• Restore time can be somewhat longer as long as backup windows remain small.

Concept / Approach:
A normal backup backs up all selected files and resets the archive attribute, making it time consuming but simple for restores. An incremental backup backs up only files that have changed since the last normal or incremental backup and resets the archive bit. A differential backup backs up files that have changed since the last normal backup and does not reset the archive bit, so the amount of data increases each day. Copy backups are full backups that do not affect archive bits. To minimise daily backup time, you want to back up as little data as possible each day, which points to incremental backups.

Step-by-Step Solution:
Step 1: Recognize that performing a normal backup every day would back up all files and take the most time, violating the requirement.Step 2: Understand that copy backups are also essentially full backups and would not reduce the daily backup window.Step 3: Compare incremental and differential methods. Both back up only changed files, but they treat the archive attribute differently.Step 4: For incremental backups, each daily backup includes only files changed since the last normal or incremental backup, so daily backup size tends to be small.Step 5: For differential backups, each daily backup includes all files changed since the last full backup, causing each day's backup to grow larger through the week.Step 6: Conclude that incremental backups will take the least time on average for the daily backup tasks.

Verification / Alternative check:
To restore data for a full week using incremental backups, you would first restore the last normal backup, then restore each incremental backup in sequence. This increases restore complexity but keeps backup times short. Differential backups simplify restore (full backup plus last differential), but the size and time of the backups grow every day. Because the question specifically emphasises minimising backup time, incremental is the correct choice.

Why Other Options Are Wrong:
A normal backup takes the longest time and is unnecessary on a daily basis when a weekly full backup is already performed. Differential backups would eventually back up more data each day as the week progresses, increasing backup time. Copy backups are typically used for ad hoc backups that should not change the normal backup schedule and would not meet the goal of short daily backup windows.

Common Pitfalls:
Students often confuse which method minimises backup time versus which minimises restore time. Differential backups are excellent for quicker restores but do not provide the shortest backup windows. Another pitfall is ignoring the archive attribute and how each backup type interacts with it. Understanding this attribute is essential for predicting how much data each backup type will capture over time.

Final Answer:
To minimise the time required for daily backups between weekly normal backups, you should use Incremental backups.