Is it enough to have only full backup and transaction log backup only for a good backup plan? If Full backup is scheduled for every Sunday at 12 pm and differential back up is scheduled for for every 6 hours and transaction log backup is scheduled for every 15 minutes.

My problem is what is the use of differential backup every 6 hours if we are taking a transaction log backup every 15 minutes? Is it enough to have only full backup and transaction log backup only ?

Thank you
My problem is what is the use of differential backup every 6 hours if we are taking a transaction log backup every 15 minutes?


Differential backup is used to decrease the Recovery time object(RTO), it gives you facility of restoring backups quickly. Differential backup includes all the changes made since last full backup, or full backup which started the differential chain. Differential backup is not affected by log backup so in event of disaster you would have to restore(in your case)


12 PM Sunday full backup
Differential backup taken before the disaster strike. Note this is just one diff backup you have to restore no matter how many you have taken because its cumulative
The log backups after diff backup (in point 2) stopping just before the disaster struck.