Help Me Chose And Understand Backup Software

Guitarman0 · 10 Apr 2011 at 19:45

O.k. I am sure that this has been posted 100 times but I am looking for something quite (I think) specific. I am getting a little confused with all the backup terminology so I would really appreciate some help.

Basically, I am looking for a program that will allow me to back up all of my files and every week I want it to back up what has changed since the last backup, but I also want to have it in 1 file so that if my computer crashes and I lose everything I will have a copy of my hard drive all in 1 file (i.e. so all of the latest files are in there so it looks exactly like my hdd did before it died).

I have tried using cobain backup 10 but I am finding it difficult to set up so does anyone else have any recommendations? I would really prefer it was free but if I have to I will reluctantly pay a small free.

Thanks for your help

liamcrane · 10 Apr 2011 at 20:04

I would highly recommend Macrium Reflect linked below

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp

Its by far the best backup software imo i have created and restored many images with with no issues at all, there's loads of guides on there site as well if you get stuck. I understand your looking for incremental backups for file changes the free version does not offer this unfortunatly but the paid version does. I think it only works out at £20 for a license i may be wrong though.

You could always create a batch file using either windows xcopy or robocopy feature which is also very handy. I use this to backup all my music files etc you can just set it to run say everyday at midday via windows task schedular and it will only backup any files that have chnaged since the last time it was run. If you wanna go down that route im sure there are plenty of people who would be willing to give you hand including myself

Good luck matey hope this helped

Pho · 10 Apr 2011 at 20:07

You're looking for an incremental image backup, Cobian doesn't do this as far as I'm aware, we do use Cobian at work for some backups and it works pretty well though.

If you have Windows 7 you can use the built in backup functionality, here's a guide.

I use Acronis True Image which is pretty much the same but more customisable.

nuttyprot · 10 Apr 2011 at 20:31

I personally use Norton Ghost easy to use I find.

Guitarman0 · 11 Apr 2011 at 00:34

Thanks for the links guys. I will check them out tomorrow

JonJ678 · 11 Apr 2011 at 02:16

If you store the entire backup in one file, and then your one file corrupts, your backup is broken. One directory / folder is probably a better plan.

What are you backing up to? If it's an external hard drive, then the backup is only as recent as when you last plugged it in, and if it's plugged in all the time it's vulnerable to pretty much the same things as the main drive.

If you can face setting it up, rsnapshot with a read only samba share is very good.

MikeTech · 11 Apr 2011 at 06:08

Try Handy Backup, very easy to use backup software.

Guitarman0 · 11 Apr 2011 at 08:36

JonJ678 said:
If you store the entire backup in one file, and then your one file corrupts, your backup is broken. One directory / folder is probably a better plan.

What are you backing up to? If it's an external hard drive, then the backup is only as recent as when you last plugged it in, and if it's plugged in all the time it's vulnerable to pretty much the same things as the main drive.

If you can face setting it up, rsnapshot with a read only samba share is very good.

Sorry, I did mean a directory, not an entire file

Raz · 11 Apr 2011 at 09:18

Pho said:
You're looking for an incremental image backup, Cobian doesn't do this as far as I'm aware, we do use Cobian at work for some backups and it works pretty well though.

If you have Windows 7 you can use the built in backup functionality, here's a guide.

I use Acronis True Image which is pretty much the same but more customisable.

another vote for acronis, just used it to restore an image of vista. simple to use.

Magic_x_uk · 30 May 2011 at 10:00

Sorry to bump this, but is it not just easier to connect say a External HD and then copy everything from one drive to another? Just drag and drop? or am i missing something.

lurkio · 30 May 2011 at 11:25

Magic_x_uk said:
Sorry to bump this, but is it not just easier to connect say a External HD and then copy everything from one drive to another? Just drag and drop? or am i missing something.

Yep you are missing something .......

What if your OS partition gets corrupted ?

How do you just copy the "files" back and get it working ...... you cant