---
title: "Recovery points and retention"
description: "What a CDP Backup recovery point holds, how often one is made, and which ones a backup plan keeps and merges away."
content_type: "concept"
product: "cdp-backup"
platform: "MyAccount"
url: "/myaccount/cdp-backup/concepts/recovery-points-and-retention/"
---

# Recovery points and retention

A recovery point is one backup of a node at a moment in time. Each finished backup run adds one to the node's **Backup Recovery Points** tab, whether it was
scheduled or started with **Backup Now**. When you
restore, you pick the recovery point whose files you want back.

## What a recovery point holds

Each recovery point holds all the node's backed-up data as it was at that moment: every file and
folder on the node and its attached volumes, except the paths you left out. When you attach and
mount a volume later, the next backup includes it and makes a full copy of it. You can restore from
any recovery point on its own, without the ones before it.

The first backup copies the node's whole disk. Each later backup copies only what changed since the
one before. Later backups finish much faster as a result.

Recovery points live on E2E's backup servers. They take no space on the node's disk.

## How often a recovery point is made

The backup plan you choose in **Select backup schedule mode** sets how many hours pass between
backups: six hours for **Regular Plan** and **Long Term Extended Daily Backups**, four hours for
the two High Frequency plans, and 10 hours for the two Low Frequency plans.

**Backup Time (IST)** lists the hours a plan runs at. Those hours come with the plan, and the
minute past the hour is chosen for you as well.

A node gets new recovery points only while it is running.

Turning backup on starts the first backup straight away. After the first backup finishes, you can
use **Backup Now** to add a recovery point at any time while the node is running.

## Which recovery points are kept

A plan keeps a set number of recovery points at each of these levels:

- the most recent backups, one for each run
- the last backup to finish before midnight on each recent day
- the last backup of Saturday, for a number of previous weeks
- the last backup of the last day of the month, for a number of previous months
- the last backup of the last day of the year, for a number of previous years, on some plans

The plan merges older recovery points away.

The numbers depend on the plan; see the table in
[Turn on CDP Backup for a node](/myaccount/cdp-backup/how-to/turn-on-cdp-backup/#choose-the-schedule).
**Backup Schedule Configuration** shows them for the plan you pick. The note on the node's
**CDP Backup Details** tab shows the numbers for the plan in use. When a plan lists no retention
numbers, backup keeps the last 12 recovery points, one a day for 14 days, one a week for four
weeks, and one a month for two months.

Each plan's numbers are fixed. To keep recovery points further back, move the node to a plan that
keeps more; see
[Change the backup schedule](/myaccount/cdp-backup/how-to/change-the-backup-schedule/). The new
plan's recent, daily, weekly, and monthly counts apply from then on. The yearly count keeps the
value it had when backup was turned on.

## Keeping a recovery point longer

To keep one particular recovery point longer than the plan's retention allows, lock it. Retention
leaves a locked recovery point in place until you click **Unlock** on it. See [Lock a recovery
point](/myaccount/cdp-backup/how-to/lock-a-recovery-point/).

Turning backup off deletes every recovery point, locked or not; see
[Deactivate CDP Backup](/myaccount/cdp-backup/how-to/deactivate-cdp-backup/).

## Backup storage on your bill

Backup storage is billed at the peak size the node's backups reach in each calendar month. The
**Backup Usage Report** tab shows that size over time; see
[View backup history and usage](/myaccount/cdp-backup/how-to/view-backup-history-and-usage/).