What backup software do you use?

Buchanan0204

Buchanan0204

Buchanan0204

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What backup software do you guys use? I've personally never bothered with it before. I've always just copied and pasted my files onto another drive and left it there. However, you end up with the problem of the original folder/files being updated and thus the backup becomes old.

I believe Windows can do this now, especially 7. You can turn on archiving and it only backsup the new files. However, is there better more efficient software out there. If so what do you use and why?

Cheers.
 
Handy Backup is ok, but I only use it to back media up, like Blue160 I used Win 7 Backup to do a complete OS backup
 
I use Retrospect at the moment, it has been working flawlessly since I set it up properly and also has a grooming feature meaning my backup drives won't get full of old incrementals / deleted files. It lets me choose to either keep x number of incrementals, or it can fill the backup drive and only groom when it needs to.

I have tried Windows 7 backup as well, but it doesn't seem to like the amount of data I have.

I also have Macrium Reflect set up to do a monthly image of my C: drive, I usually just rebuild if anything goes wrong as I don't store anything important on C, but I'm very happy with this current build so would probably restore it instead.

And my own batch script runs every day to create a dated backup of my KeePass database + key and upload. Cannot afford to lose that.
 
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i don't backup windows at all and i just use robocopy (command line tool built in to windows) to backup my data drive. this mirrors the data so only modified files are copied and of course any files deleted from my source also get removed from the destination. i use a batch file and trigger it manually whenever i've saved some something significant.
 
Just to point out to some people. I'm not interested in making an image. I've got that covered. Just looking for software to backup individual directories.

Will look into what Craig321 said. Sounds pretty ideal to me.

:)
 
I use synctoy 2.1, i have it set to automatically backup the changes made in the folders that have setup. You need to create a task in task schedular to start the programme ... has worked perfect for me over the past year.
 
FreeFileSync supersedes SyncToy in virtually every aspect and then some. I used to be a long term SyncToy user as did many others here.
 
mrk said:
FreeFileSync supersedes SyncToy in virtually every aspect and then some. I used to be a long term SyncToy user as did many others here.
Click to expand...

Too late unfortunately. I've just downloaded it and set it all up with a scheduled task to run daily. :(

What will free file sync do that synctoy wont or can't? It seems to be doing the job for me with 0 intervention. Can I ask for more?
 
If it does what you need then that's fine I guess. FFS is faster with larger file transfers as well and has more power within each sync project.
 
Buchanan0204 said:
What will free file sync do that synctoy wont or can't? It seems to be doing the job for me with 0 intervention. Can I ask for more?
Click to expand...
When I used SyncToy many moons ago, I found it sometimes had a nasty habit of failing silently (only discovered the errors after doing a manual directory compare). This was obviously completely unacceptable for a backup program, and after some further research I found it was by no means an uncommon occurrence.

I don't know if the bugs have since been fixed, but FreeFileSync has been 100% foolproof for me so far, and given its far better speed and extra features, it's really a no-brainer. :)
 
CaptainCrash said:
When I used SyncToy many moons ago, I found it sometimes had a nasty habit of failing silently (only discovered the errors after doing a manual directory compare). This was obviously completely unacceptable for a backup program, and after some further research I found it was by no means an uncommon occurrence.

I don't know if the bugs have since been fixed, but FreeFileSync has been 100% foolproof for me so far, and given its far better speed and extra features, it's really a no-brainer. :)
Click to expand...

Is it just the same thing as SyncToy then? Does the same job, just better.

If I get issues, I'll switch over. I will do a manual compare on next schedule.
 
The latest Synctoy is a big improvement over the original if backing up to a USB stick - if the stick has a different drive letter to last time it still works correctly.

I use Synctoy, in a variety of ways - to an extra internal HDD, to a NAS, and to a USB stick.
 
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