CompTIA Network+ (N10-009)Network OperationsMedium
A company's disaster recovery plan specifies an RPO of 4 hours. The backup system performs incremental backups every 6 hours at 12:00 AM, 6:00 AM, 12:00 PM, and 6:00 PM. A server failure occurs at 3:00 PM. How much data would be lost, and does this meet the stated RPO?
- A3 hours of data lost; does not meet the RPO
- B6 hours of data lost; does not meet the RPO
- C3 hours of data lost; meets the RPO
- D9 hours of data lost; meets the RPO
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: C. 3 hours of data lost; meets the RPO
The last backup before the 3:00 PM failure occurred at 12:00 PM, so only 3 hours of data (12:00 PM to 3:00 PM) would be lost. Since 3 hours is less than the 4-hour RPO threshold, the plan meets the requirement.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. The math for lost data is right, but 3 hours is within the RPO, not outside it.
- B. 6 hours would be the backup interval, not the actual gap since the last backup.
- D. 9 hours does not correspond to the time since the last backup at 12:00 PM.
Recovery Point Objective (RPO)
The maximum acceptable amount of data loss, measured in time, that an organization can tolerate after a disruption.
- Determined by backup frequency
- Answers 'how much data can we afford to lose?'
- Different from RTO, which measures downtime, not data loss
Memory trick: RPO = Point of data loss; RTO = Time to restore.