OCI Backup Calculator

Size incremental block volume backups from change rate and retention, and price cross-region copies and the RPO you get.

About OCI Backup Calculator

Block volume backups are incremental after the first one, so the billed footprint is the retained full copies plus the daily delta multiplied by the retention window rather than a full copy per day. Backup frequency does not change the footprint much — it changes the RPO, because the worst case is everything written since the last backup. Retention drives cost while frequency drives data loss, and confusing the two leads to expensive backup policies that still lose a day of work. Cross-region copies roughly double the storage line and add a transfer charge on the changed blocks, so they should be a deliberate choice per volume. Confirm backup storage and transfer prices in the Oracle Cloud cost estimator for your region.

Formula

OCI Backup

footprint = source GB × fulls retained + daily change GB × incremental retention days; RPO = 24 ÷ backups per day.

daily change GB: Blocks rewritten each day, which is what an incremental backup captures
footprint: Total billed backup GB across the full and incremental chain
RPO: Worst-case data loss window, set purely by backup frequency

Worked example

With the default values below, OCI Backup Calculator returns Monthly Cost of $209.10. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

Source volume dataaccepts 1–1,000,000 GB: 2,000 GB
Daily change rateaccepts 0–100 %: 3 %
Backups per dayaccepts 1–24 backups: 1 backups
Full backups retainedaccepts 1–12 backups: 1 backups
Incremental retentionaccepts 1–365 days: 30 days
Backup storage price per GB-monthaccepts 0–5 USD/GB-month: 0.0255 USD/GB-month
Copy backups to a second region: Yes
Second-region storage price per GB-monthaccepts 0–5 USD/GB-month: 0.0255 USD/GB-month
Cross-region transfer price per GBaccepts 0–1 USD/GB: 0.0085 USD/GB

Results

Monthly Cost: $209.10
Backup Footprint: 3,800 GB
Backup Footprint in Bytes: 4 TiB
Primary Region Charge: $96.90
Second Region Charge: $96.90
Cross-Region Transfer Charge: $15.30
Footprint vs Source Data: 1.90 ×
Recovery Point Objective: 24.0 hours

Step by step

1Values used
2OCI Backup
3Monthly Cost= 209.10
4Backup Footprint= 3,800 GB
5Backup Footprint in Bytes= 4,080,218,931,200
6Primary Region Charge= 96.90
7Second Region Charge= 96.90
8Cross-Region Transfer Charge= 15.30

Assumptions and limits

The result is derived only from the 9 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax, fees or charges or compounding frequency into account.
Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.

How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is OCI Backup calculated?

footprint = source GB × fulls retained + daily change GB × incremental retention days; RPO = 24 ÷ backups per day. Block volume backups are incremental after the first one, so the billed footprint is the retained full copies plus the daily delta multiplied by the retention window rather than a full copy per day. Backup frequency does not change the footprint much — it changes the RPO, because the worst case is everything written since the last backup.

Why does OCI Backup matter?

Retention drives cost while frequency drives data loss, and confusing the two leads to expensive backup policies that still lose a day of work. Cross-region copies roughly double the storage line and add a transfer charge on the changed blocks, so they should be a deliberate choice per volume. Confirm backup storage and transfer prices in the Oracle Cloud cost estimator for your region.

What values do I need to enter?

This calculator takes 9 inputs: Source volume data, Daily change rate, Backups per day, Full backups retained, Incremental retention, Backup storage price per GB-month, Copy backups to a second region, Second-region storage price per GB-month, Cross-region transfer price per GB. The pre-filled defaults are a realistic starting point — replace them with figures from your own environment for a result you can act on.