Best Windows 7 alternative to TimeMachine?

xKratosx

xKratosx

xKratosx

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Joined
6 Jun 2005
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188
Hi,

I'm trying to backup the entire contents of 3 drives onto an external drive - the total size is ~2GB and my external drive is 4GB. I'd like a complete backup of everything.

I have tried many pieces of software with no luck:

Windows Backup: Simply doesn't work - I get an error saying "The backup was not successful. The error is: Windows Backup failed while trying to read from the shadow copy on one of the volumes being backed up."

Syncback SE: I actually bought this one years ago, but the interface is really clunky and it doesn't just sit nicely in the background backing up.

SyncToy: Not bad, but not automated. It works consistently at least and is probably my number one pick so far, even if it does require me to manually sync all of my files.

CrashPlan: Very promising and at first worked great, but now it's using an enormous amount of resources and seems to just be constantly syncing. It's showing at 99% yet it's going to take 13 days to complete.

Genie backup: The service constantly stops, meaning I have to restart my machine to get it up and running again. It never even came close to doing a full backup.

Are there any other pieces of software out there that would be a good choice?

Thank you
 
Thank you very much, am I right in thinking that both of those just create images though? So, if for example I change just a few files on a 1TB worth of data, will it have to create an entire new image?

Ideally I want something that sits in the background and just syncs what it has to on a sensible schedule :)
 
Have a look at FreeFileSync - it's pretty much SyncToy on steroids, with many more configuration options. The RealTimeSync component will also synchronise continuously in, err, realtime if that's what you want to do (instructions in the help file). It's only intended for selected directories though - if you want to back up an entire system state, you'll need an imaging program such as Acronis or Macrium already mentioned.

If you want continuous syncing over a network (LAN, WAN or both), you could try BTSync: http://getsync.com/

BTW, I imagine you meant TB (not GB) in your opening post?
 
xKratosx said:
Thank you very much, am I right in thinking that both of those just create images though? So, if for example I change just a few files on a 1TB worth of data, will it have to create an entire new image?

Ideally I want something that sits in the background and just syncs what it has to on a sensible schedule :)
Click to expand...

With Acronis, the non stop backup, it stays on all the time just like Time Machine and is incremental, you can set it for the whole drive or selected folders.

So if the have an excel document for example that you regularly change you will have the ability to retrieve old versions of the document if you accidentally save over it with crap or make a mistake.

Also you can set up separate scheduled backups if you want.

So you could use non stop incremental backs for your important files, like office docs personal photos etc.

Set a full incremental scheduled backup for the whole drive including you not so critical media files.

And an email specific scheduled backup.
 
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