Advanced schedules: two rhythms in one job

An incremental job normally starts a new full every so many runs, wherever that falls in the week. Advanced mode lets you say instead: a full on Sunday at 01:00, an incremental every night at 02:00. Two rhythms, one job, one chain. Advanced mode is part of Home and Pro; on Free it is greyed out.

Wizard step 5 - an advanced schedule

Set it up#

1. On the wizard's Schedule step, choose Advanced.
2. Under Full backups, pick a rhythm and a time. Weekly on Sunday is the usual choice.
3. Under Incremental / differential, pick the other rhythm, such as Daily at 02:00 or Every few hours.
4. Check Next runs: the next five runs from both rhythms, soonest first.
5. Save the job.

Both rhythms offer the same six choices as Simple mode. See The six schedule rhythms.

How the two rhythms interact#

• When both fall on the same minute, only the full runs.
• An incremental an hour after a full still runs. It is small, because little has changed. With a full on Sunday at 01:00 and incrementals daily at 02:00, Sunday gets both.
• Each full starts a new chain; the incrementals that follow build on it.
• The job's Backup type, on the Settings step, decides what the second rhythm writes: Incremental stores what changed since the last run, Differential what changed since the last full. Leave it on one of those two: with Full, both rhythms write full sets. See The four backup types.

How long a chain gets#

Retention is set on the Settings step, not here: Keep N sets, start a new full after N runs, delete sets older than N days. With a weekly full, a new full after 7 runs agrees with the Sunday full. It acts as a safety net if the Sunday run is missed. See Retention.

Related articles#

• The six schedule rhythms
• The four backup types
• Retention