Increase snapshot backup frequency for RDS for PostgreSQL - ApsaraDB RDS

ApsaraDB RDS for PostgreSQL supports high-frequency snapshot backup at intervals from every 15 minutes to every 12 hours, providing timely data protection for workloads with frequent updates, strict consistency requirements, or low downtime tolerance.

Prerequisites

The RDS PostgreSQL instance uses ESSD or Premium ESSD storage.
Note
- To switch from SSD to ESSD storage, Change configurations.
- Serverless instances are not supported.
If you are using the ApsaraDB RDS backup service for the first time, use your primary Alibaba Cloud account to authorize the AliyunServiceRoleForDBS service-linked role.

Billing

Backup storage that exceeds the free quota incurs charges. Pricing details: backup storage costs.

How it works

Without high-frequency snapshot backup, the maximum backup frequency is once per day.
When this feature is enabled, you can set the backup frequency from every 15 minutes to every 12 hours.

Snapshot retention varies by frequency:

Snapshot frequency

Snapshot retention policy

Minute-level

All snapshots from the last hour are retained. Beyond 1 hour, only the first snapshot per hour is kept. Beyond 24 hours, only the first snapshot per day (after 00:00) is kept.

Example: At every-15-minute frequency, 33 snapshots are retained per week — 4 from the last hour, 23 hourly snapshots from the 1–24 hour window, and 6 daily snapshots for the remaining days.

Hour-level

All snapshots from the last 24 hours are retained. Beyond 24 hours, only the first snapshot per day (after 00:00) is kept.

Example: At every-6-hour frequency, 10 snapshots are retained per week — 4 from the last 24 hours and 6 daily snapshots for the remaining days.

Note

Complete retention rules: snapshot retention policy.

Enable high-frequency snapshot backup

On the instance details page, go to the Backup and Restoration > Backup Strategy tab. In the Data Backup Settings section, click Edit to configure the snapshot frequency.

Enabling high-frequency snapshot backup also requires Single-digit Second Backup. If it is disabled when you enable this feature, the system enables it automatically.
Other backup parameters are described in Back up PostgreSQL data.
After a high-frequency snapshot is created, you can use it to restore the instance. Snapshot data is also uploaded to OSS in the background. To check upload progress, go to Task Center and filter for Back Up Snapshot to OSS tasks.

Note
Before upload to OSS, high-frequency snapshots use single-AZ redundancy. After upload, redundancy depends on the region: if the region supports creating zone-redundant storage (ZRS) buckets, backups default to multi-AZ redundancy; otherwise, single-AZ redundancy is used.

Select the Increase snapshot frequency checkbox, and then select Every 15 minutes from the frequency drop-down list.

Related operations

You can also configure the snapshot frequency through the BackupInterval parameter in the ModifyBackupPolicy API.
Comprehensive backup and recovery strategies: Backup solutions overview, data recovery overview.