MSP360 Backup enables you to perform real-time cloud backup for your utmost important files that must remain intact regardless of emerging circumstances. In this article, we wanted to clarify the use-cases for the feature as well as scenarios in which it's advisable to avoid using it.
Introduction
The usual scenario for configuring a backup plan is to simply schedule it to run daily or weekly. While that use-case is perfectly fine for your image-based and large-file backups, you may perhaps need something more frequent for your most important files or the files you share with other people. For example, you may have more frequent or irregular updates for folders and files that you want to back up. In this case, the real-time backup that is also known in the industry as Continuous Data Protection (CDP) can be very useful.
Real-time Backup
Unlike conventional backup plans, which are executed at the designated time, real-time cloud backup is constantly observing and collecting the changes made to the files and folders. MSP360 Backup with its real-time backup automatically looks for new and modified files every 15 min and sends the copies to the backup storage in the background. That way you can be sure that your files are always secure and accessible from the cloud. And you will get an email notification every 24 hours for your real-time backup plans (if an email notification is configured).
As we've mentioned earlier, real-time cloud backup is not your best option when it comes to large files, particularly pst files; conventional backup plans are more suitable for this role. Also, it doesn't work properly with shared folders, NAS storages and Microsoft Office open files.
Real-time Backup Alternatives
Finally, note that using real-time backup is not the only way of expediting backup plan executions. Many users choose to use the real-time backup because the regular backup routine sometimes necessitates scanning the entire disk or large folders with millions of files which might take a while. To help fix this issue, do consider using MSP360 Backup's Fast NTFS scan that significantly reduces the disc-scanning time and might serve as a decent alternative for real-time backup.