Size incremental block volume backups from change rate and retention, and price cross-region copies and the RPO you get.
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.
OCI Backup
footprint = source GB × fulls retained + daily change GB × incremental retention days; RPO = 24 ÷ backups per day.
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.
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.
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.