# Backup overview and strategy

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/backup-overview-and-strategy/161529>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [December 19, 2018, 1:33pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/backup-overview-and-strategy/161529 "2018-12-19T13:33:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![genseb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c4cdca/32.png) [@genseb](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/genseb)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2018, 1:33pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/backup-overview-and-strategy/161529/1 "2018-12-19T13:33:38Z")

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Hi,

I have a 5 nodes elasticsearch cluster that I want to backup.

Backup to S3 works well but I have questions about snapshots way of working.

The first backup took 30 minutes and the other took 10 secondes.

I've concluded that snapshots are incremental (are they?)

If so, if I delete first snapshot, is there a merge mechanism?

Is there a way to make full backup everytime?

Thanks.

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**Author:** ![dadoonet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dadoonet/32/137187_2.png) [@dadoonet](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dadoonet)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2018, 1:47pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/backup-overview-and-strategy/161529/2 "2018-12-19T13:47:50Z")

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> I've concluded that snapshots are incremental (are they?)

Yes they are.

> If so, if I delete first snapshot, is there a merge mechanism?

Not really. If you delete the first snapshot files that are not needed anymore by any snapshot will be removed.

> Is there a way to make full backup everytime?

Create a new repository everytime.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![genseb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c4cdca/32.png) [@genseb](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/genseb)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2018, 3:01pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/backup-overview-and-strategy/161529/3 "2018-12-19T15:01:06Z")

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Thanks a lot for your answer!

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [January 16, 2019, 3:01pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/backup-overview-and-strategy/161529/4 "2019-01-16T15:01:06Z")

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