What is the main characteristic of an incremental backup?

An incremental backup's main characteristic is that it only stores what has changed since the last backup. This means that instead of backing up all data, it efficiently tracks the differences from the previous backup, thus conserving storage space and reducing the time required to perform the backup. By only capturing the data that has been added or modified, incremental backups ensure that backups remain manageable in size and can be performed quickly, allowing for more frequent backups without significant resource usage. This method contrasts with full backups, which can be time-consuming and resource-intensive since they back up the entire data set every time.