most reliable home backup solution

Superficial

Superficial

Superficial

Soldato
Joined
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hi there,

I used to think that Acronis held this crown but recent experiences have made me feel otherwise.

can anyone recommend a robust automated backup software package?

thanks
 
2 Hard drives. One plugged in. Daily ran rsync job or robocopy or whatever using cron / system task schedueler etc to copy / mirror all data on to this drive. Swap HDs about do it a gain. Store 1st hd offsite and repeat process 1 a month or more. Repeat process for other drive every day.
 
Without doubt Acronis 2009 - it's the first version I have had that works everytime across each of my three PC's - used it tonight to restore a full Vista image after trying out Windows 7 - flawless restore.

What I would recommend though is forget all the things Acronis claims it can do and just stick to full image backups - that's it's core task and the one it does best and most reliably.
 
heres a few ive used or are currently using


acronis - would recommend - used and using
nortan ghost - would recommend - used
raid - would recommend - used
windows home server - would recommend - used
time machine
western digital premium (has a backup soloution) - would recommend - used
seagate has something similar
windows backup solution - used
simple copy and paste to an external - used
my drop box - (only 2gb free) - would recommend - used and using
skydrive - (only 25gb) - would recommend - used and using
g drive (google drive) - used
 
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Faustus said:
What I would recommend though is forget all the things Acronis claims it can do and just stick to full image backups - that's it's core task and the one it does best and most reliably.
Click to expand...

perhaps you have a point - Acronis was started as a pure imaging application and this is where its strenghs lie

thanks for your input.
 
For me it's a combination

Ultra-important documents (current coursework etc) are backed up once a night to
My laptop hard drive
A USB drive
My uni network share

All documents are backed up once a week to my home NAS and an external HDD
Once a month I make a complete backup of my hard drive to get all the music etc - non critical things where I'd be annoyed if I lost more than a month

Unfortunately most of it is manual at the moment. I'm determined to automate it sometime (a simple bat file should do it, as I don't need it to work on other systems than my own).
 
daztrouk said:
setup mozy and forget about it
Click to expand...

Not a good idea to implement and forget about any backup solution. Any solution used may run into issues over time and if you are not confirming that the backup is working then you won't know this until the time comes when you need to restore.

To the OP, look at your data and decide (a) how important is it and (b) how important is your access to it. Not all data is likely to have the same ratings in both (a) and (b). Files which have a high "a" rating may need a more comprehensive backup solution to ones which don't. For files which have a high "b" rating then you should consider placing them on some sort of RAID solution, (obviously not RAID0), to maintain access to the files even if a disk fails without having to resort to a restore. Note though that RAID is not a backup mechanism and any files on a RAID array still need to be backed up.

If you have a small amount of data that you want to backup then use an online service provider but make sure it is working and that you can easily get at your data, (even from another machine), and that it is not corrupt (I've read some horror stories about Amazon S3 based solutions). If you have a large amount of data then you are going to realistically be looking at USB drives which you need to hold offsite ideally. The former should provide you some sort of tool for backing up, the latter you can use whatever copy method seems suitable be that synctoy (or equivalent) or even Windows Explorer drag and drop. But remember to keep it simple and tested.

Personally, in my setup important files are kept on a NAS (configured as RAID1). These are backed up nightly to a linux server at my parents over an encrypted tunnel, (the NAS is mounted onto a linux server which then backs up the relevant files using rsync over an SSH tunnel). I also back this up to local USB disk on a monthly basis.

Less important files sit on a RAID array in a linux server. These are also held on two other machines in the house, (mostly media data, e.g. CD/DVD rips), which it is synced to each time it is updated (synctoy). This server is also backed up to USB disk monthly and this disk kept offsite.
 
I run a simple file server with a raid 1 array and use MS Robocopy to run a backup everytime my PC is logged off (or shutdown - gpedit, run script at logoff) that backs up files to the file server server. It's basically as the above post suggested that even if one drive fails, I still have a copy of my backed up files.

RAID isn't a backup solution if it's being used in your main system and your files arnt backed up anywhere else, mirrored drives are handy incase of a drive failure but they are exactly that, mirrored. if you delete something off one, its deleted off the other. Personally I think it can be a half decent solution when used next to your main system where files get backed up from your main system TO the RAID. Then theres no dillusions that because 1 drive is mirroring the other, all my data is safe!. (your not directly incontact with the files like you would on your own system. The chance of accidently deleting something is reduced by a fair ammount, though it's still not totally fool proof because theres nothing stopping someone from mapping a network drive to the file server and just deleting files directly off that).

For anything ultra important they also get copied to a portable laptop drive I have.
 
acronis boot cd once a month for C: if that..

Music/Videos/Photos are robocopied each time a new file is added

Steam folder robocopied once a month


Then each time I go to my mum's house, the Music/Videos/Photos backup drive is taken to my mum's house and robocopied again onto my 5x 400gb disc RAID3
 
memyselfandi said:
Not a good idea to implement and forget about any backup solution. Any solution used may run into issues over time and if you are not confirming that the backup is working then you won't know this until the time comes when you need to restore.

SNIP
Click to expand...

Mozy tells you when it's about to begin a backup, and also tells you when the backup has completed successfully. So in a way, you are forgetting about it, as it's already been configured, so you leave it to get on with the job. As long as you have an internet connection, it's dealt with.
 
For multiple PCs - An old PC with lots of storage running Windows Home Server.

Very simple, and very good. I deliberately wiped my laptop HDD to test it, and within 20 mins I was back on it asif nothing had happened.
 
bledd. said:
Then each time I go to my mum's house, the Music/Videos/Photos backup drive is taken to my mum's house and robocopied again onto my 5x 400gb disc RAID3
Click to expand...

I presume you mean RAID 5? RAID 3 would be unusual..

I have media stuff on a RAID5 array in my main computer. Stuff I care about more is then backed up to 3 internal drives in the same computer, which are then unplugged in case of a power surge. Then I have two portable USB drives, one of which I use to sync my laptop and desktop documents, the other to image my C: and robocopy music, though I'm being a bit lax about keeping up to date at the moment. Those are mostly not plugged in. And I used to have a vbscript and GMail Drive to backup important stuff every night to GMail, but unfortunately a GMail upgrade a year or so ago seems to have broken the tool and it now appears to be unsupported; I was never really a fan of G Drive.
I'm planning on organising it all a bit better with keeping backups seperate to the computer, probably just with an external caddy that can hold 4-5 drives as I don't need a NAS, and automating much of it.. can't be bothered at the moment.
 
I think this is where Acronis 2009 really shines. I set it to do full image backups which fingers crossed have never failed me yet (and I do a restore every now and again to check that Acronis is working). However, not only does it do the full image but it now lets you mount that image so it appears exactly like your C: drive. That way you can access any file you want and if necessary copy them. :D
 
I have all my work docs and my docs folders synced across 2 machines using Windows Live Sync. I also have Acronis scheduled to to a full system backup once a month. Between the 2 I am hopefully covered.
 
I currenltly use ntbackup running on a windows 2003 box in our garage. This is quite a distance from the house so it protects from fire. There are 3 computers it backs up once a week - 80gb for each and i retain the backup for two weeks just in case a backup doesn't run properly. It's all automated and all fits nicely on a 750gb disk.

I'm moving out soon and I'm going to add to that by copying my backups to my parents house and my parents backups on the server to my computer.

I'm not quite sure how I'm going to do that exactly yet as it will be over a wan - probably incremental i imagine but i will have to move away from ntbackup as that adds incremental backups to the .bkf baseline file rather than make seperate files.

I also keep a resized copy of all my pictures on drop box - they are the most important things to me.
 
Good thing i stumbled upon this post. I am actually having problems backing up my pc, I keep on using Windows back-up and restore but it keeps telling that my ext HD does not enough space when it has more than enough. Thanks everyone for the tip.
 
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Im using SyncBackPro to mirror specified folders onto a 1Tb eSata drive and Acronis 2009 for imaging of c:\

I'm actually rather impressed with SyncBackPro and would highly recommend it.
 
What would be the best / easiest solution to get the pc to backup important folders / files the same time everyday? Are there free, reliable programs about that i can try? Never done it before but i really do need an easy solution to backup everyday. Ta
 
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