# Xtrabackup 8: full and incremental size

**URL:** <https://forums.percona.com/t/xtrabackup-8-full-and-incremental-size/20244>\
**Category:** Percona XtraBackup\
**Created:** [February 23, 2023, 1:05am UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/xtrabackup-8-full-and-incremental-size/20244 "2023-02-23T01:05:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Mamisoa\_Andriantafik](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forums.percona.com/mamisoa_andriantafik/32/9446_2.png) [@Mamisoa\_Andriantafik](https://forums.percona.com/u/Mamisoa_Andriantafik)\
**Post date:** [February 23, 2023, 1:05am UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/xtrabackup-8-full-and-incremental-size/20244/1 "2023-02-23T01:05:02Z")

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Hi,

I get the same directory size using incremental or full xtrabackup. Is it normal?

Mamisoa

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**Author:** ![Rahul\_Malik](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forums.percona.com/rahul_malik/32/3580_2.png) [@Rahul\_Malik](https://forums.percona.com/u/Rahul_Malik)\
**Post date:** [February 23, 2023, 1:14am UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/xtrabackup-8-full-and-incremental-size/20244/2 "2023-02-23T01:14:40Z")

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Incremental backups only copy pages that are modified after the full backup. The size of the incremental backup depends on when the incremental backup is taken. If the database is under a huge update or the incremental is taken after a very long time, the incremental size can be the same as the full backup.

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**Author:** ![Mamisoa\_Andriantafik](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forums.percona.com/mamisoa_andriantafik/32/9446_2.png) [@Mamisoa\_Andriantafik](https://forums.percona.com/u/Mamisoa_Andriantafik)\
**Post date:** [February 23, 2023, 10:31am UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/xtrabackup-8-full-and-incremental-size/20244/3 "2023-02-23T10:31:14Z")

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Thanks for the answer.

Actually I did a full backup and just after an incremental backup. I get the same size without any transactions.

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**Author:** ![matthewb](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forums.percona.com/matthewb/32/34_2.png) [@matthewb](https://forums.percona.com/u/matthewb)\
**Post date:** [February 23, 2023, 5:07pm UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/xtrabackup-8-full-and-incremental-size/20244/4 "2023-02-23T17:07:09Z")

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Hello @Mamisoa_Andriantafik,  
Can you please provide the exact commands you used to take both the full backup and the incremental backup?

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**Author:** ![Mamisoa\_Andriantafik](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forums.percona.com/mamisoa_andriantafik/32/9446_2.png) [@Mamisoa\_Andriantafik](https://forums.percona.com/u/Mamisoa_Andriantafik)\
**Post date:** [February 23, 2023, 5:13pm UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/xtrabackup-8-full-and-incremental-size/20244/5 "2023-02-23T17:13:38Z")

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Here is for a full backup:

```auto
xtrabackup --backup --user="$user" --password="$password" --compress --target-dir="$start_dir/$backup_dir" --parallel=$core_num

```

and for incremental:

```auto
xtrabackup --backup --user="$user" --password="$password" --compress --target-dir="$start_dir/$backup_dir" --parallel=$core_num --incremental-basedir="$last_full_dir"

```

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**Author:** ![matthewb](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forums.percona.com/matthewb/32/34_2.png) [@matthewb](https://forums.percona.com/u/matthewb)\
**Post date:** [February 23, 2023, 5:51pm UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/xtrabackup-8-full-and-incremental-size/20244/6 "2023-02-23T17:51:36Z")

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Your `--target-dir` is the same for both commands. You told xtrabackup to overwrite what was previously in there. Use separate target directories to hold the full and incremental backups.

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**Author:** ![Mamisoa\_Andriantafik](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forums.percona.com/mamisoa_andriantafik/32/9446_2.png) [@Mamisoa\_Andriantafik](https://forums.percona.com/u/Mamisoa_Andriantafik)\
**Post date:** [February 24, 2023, 10:19pm UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/xtrabackup-8-full-and-incremental-size/20244/7 "2023-02-24T22:19:34Z")

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Oh sorry, in the script $backupdir is a variable to set the name of the directory with the datetime upon execution, so they are never the same.

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**Author:** ![matthewb](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forums.percona.com/matthewb/32/34_2.png) [@matthewb](https://forums.percona.com/u/matthewb)\
**Post date:** [February 24, 2023, 10:22pm UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/xtrabackup-8-full-and-incremental-size/20244/8 "2023-02-24T22:22:40Z")

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Can you provide the xtrabackup output of the incremental run? Or maybe just the first 300 lines?