Enable incremental snapshot backups

When incremental snapshot backups are enabled (disabled by default), DataStax Enterprise (DSE) hard-links each memtable-flushed SSTable to a backups directory under the keyspace data directory. This allows storing backups offsite without transferring entire snapshots. Incremental backups combined with snapshots provide a dependable, up-to-date backup mechanism.

Compacted SSTables do not create hard links in /backups because these SSTables do not contain any data that has not already been linked.

A backup is comprised of a snapshot at a given point in time plus all incremental backups and commit logs since that time.

As with snapshots, DSE doesn’t automatically clear incremental backup files. DataStax recommends setting up a process to clear incremental backup hard links each time a new snapshot is created.