# 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 "rentention" parameter allows you to modify how many backups are retained (by removing the oldest one).

[![](./assets/backupexample.png)](https://xen-orchestra.com/blog/backup-your-xenserver-vms-with-xen-orchestra/)

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).

## How it works

Full backups use XenServer's VM export capabilities. We store and rotate XVA files. It works very well. If you want to use less disk space, take a look at the [delta backups](delta_backups.md) feature.