# Questions regarding ElasticSearch backup
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/questions-regarding-elasticsearch-backup/31309
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [September 29, 2015, 7:54am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/questions-regarding-elasticsearch-backup/31309 "2015-09-29T07:54:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@MartinG](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/MartinG)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2015, 7:54am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/questions-regarding-elasticsearch-backup/31309/1 "2015-09-29T07:54:31Z")
Hello,
I have some questions regarding ElasticSearch backups. As described in the documentation ([https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/guide/current/backing-up-your-cluster.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/guide/current/backing-up-your-cluster.html)) the first backup is a full backup and all following backups are incremental.
If I decide to run a backup every night e.g. this means that after three days I need to restore the full backup and the backups of two days to get the last backup state. After one year this would mean that I need to restore the first backup and followed by 364 incremental backups.
Do I understand this correct?
Another question: if I create another repository and I run again a backup. Will this backup be a full backup?
Greetings,
Martin
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### Author:  [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2015, 8:12am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/questions-regarding-elasticsearch-backup/31309/2 "2015-09-29T08:12:05Z")
> [@MartinG](#):
>
> Do I understand this correct?
Nope, but that's a good thing!
You can restore the full backup and then just the day you want and Elasticsearch will figure out what other data it needs from any of the other backups.
> [@MartinG](#):
>
> Another question: if I create another repository and I run again a backup. Will this backup be a full backup?
Yes that is correct.
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### Author:  [@MartinG](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/MartinG)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2015, 3:07pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/questions-regarding-elasticsearch-backup/31309/3 "2015-09-29T15:07:07Z")
Hello Mark,
thank you very much for your quick answers!
I have an additional question:
E.g. I create an index A with several documents. I run a first backup, which is a full backup.
On the next day I create index B (with documents) and run a backup, which is an incremental one.
On the third day I create index C (again with data). But I also delete index A. Then I create a new backup.
What will happen with the data of index A in the backup repository? Will it also be deleted? I assume, it will not be deleted. If I'm right this means, that my repository grows and grows.
Greetings,
Martin
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### Author:  [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2015, 3:18pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/questions-regarding-elasticsearch-backup/31309/4 "2015-09-29T15:18:02Z")
The snapshot and restore functionality is described very well [in this blog post](https://www.elastic.co/blog/found-elasticsearch-snapshot-and-restore).
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### Author:  [@MartinG](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/MartinG)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2015, 9:04am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/questions-regarding-elasticsearch-backup/31309/5 "2015-10-06T09:04:49Z")
Thanks a lot. It's a great article.
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2017, 11:46pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/questions-regarding-elasticsearch-backup/31309/6 "2017-07-05T23:46:34Z")