Proxmox Incremental Backup ((better))

Only 5 MB of data changed inside the VM (e.g., logs, a database write). The disk has 100 GB total, but 99.995 GB is identical to Day 1.

The chunk index is stored in RAM. If you have 20TB of unique chunks, PBS needs significant RAM to map them. Solution: Rule of thumb: 1GB of RAM per 1TB of unique stored data. Add more RAM to your PBS instance. proxmox incremental backup

| Traditional Backup | Proxmox + PBS Incremental | |-------------------|----------------------------| | Full backup daily = huge storage | Only unique chunks stored once | | Slow backup windows | Fast, often <5 min for small changes | | High network load | Minimal data transfer | | Deduplication only after backup | Inline, real-time deduplication | | Restore requires merging increments | Restore any snapshot directly as full | Only 5 MB of data changed inside the VM (e

The fear with incremental backups is always restore complexity: "Do I need the last full plus all 30 incrementals to restore?" If you have 20TB of unique chunks, PBS