# Full backups
You can schedule full backups of your VMs, by exporting them to the local XOA file-system, or directly to an NFS or SMB share. The "retention" parameter allows you to modify how many backups are retained (by removing the oldest one).
TIP
Full backups are space consuming! But they allow a very simple restoration without anything to think of (the file will contain all the VM disks and information). To use less space and data transferred, take a look at the delta backups feature.
# Backup without snapshot
In some cases you will need to do a backup without doing a snapshot.
The most common use case for this is a large VM on a small local SR where you just don't have the space to do a snapshot before backup. So for that you need to open the advanced settings of your backup job, and check the offline backup check box:
