ISC2 CC Practice Question: Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery, and Incident Response
Which backup strategy offers the fastest restore time but requires the most storage space?
⚠ Common exam trap
CC often tests the trade-off between restore speed and storage consumption, and candidates may incorrectly assume incremental backups are fastest to restore because they are smallest.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Full backup
A full backup copies all selected data every time, so restoring requires only the latest full backup, resulting in the fastest restore time. However, because it duplicates all data with each backup, it requires the most storage space compared to incremental or differential backups.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Incremental backup
Why it's wrong here
Incremental backups store only data changed since the previous backup, making them the smallest-footprint strategy, but restoring requires the last full plus every subsequent increment, which is the slowest chain. They suit storage-constrained environments, not the fastest restore with maximum space consumption.
- ✗
Differential backup
Why it's wrong here
Differential backups store every change since the last full backup, so each successive run grows and consumes more space than incremental backups, though restore needs only the last full plus one differential. They suit moderate recovery-time objectives, not the fastest restore with the largest storage requirement.
- ✗
Snapshot backup
Why it's wrong here
Snapshots capture a point-in-time image, so restoring is quick, but they duplicate changed blocks rather than storing only one full copy plus deltas. They suit frequent rollback of VMs or volumes, not the scenario's demand for a strategy whose storage footprint exceeds full plus incremental backups.
- ✓
Full backup
Why this is correct
A full backup captures every selected file in a single operation, so restoration requires only one pass from one backup set — no incremental chain to replay. This satisfies the stem's fastest-restore constraint, while duplicating all data at each run explains the maximum storage consumption.
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official ISC2 exam blueprint
This CC practice question is part of Courseiva's free ISC2 certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CC exam.