What backup software

Colbaker

Colbaker

Colbaker

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Joined
8 Dec 2004
Posts
1,970
Location
Paignton, Devon
Hi all,

I want to do a complete backup of my computer over my network and preferably compressed but easily opened and accessed, The reason for this is i want to do a complete re-install and can't be 100% sure my wife has all her stuff backed up.

Is there any freeware that can do this?
 
I use aomei backupper standard. Very easy to use and can do system, partitions or file backup.

Lots of people recommend macrium reflect but I found it fairly confusing to use. It kept asking about XML syntax stuff.
 
Macrium Reflect.

The black friday code still works for 30% off:

ET6-HZ4-F8U

paid £33.56p for the home version

Used the trial version for 48 hours, its cloned my C: on an external and is now doing incrimental backups.
Used Easeus ToDo before. But Macrium seems to have blown it out of the water.
 
Disco_P said:
I use aomei backupper standard. Very easy to use and can do system, partitions or file backup.

Lots of people recommend macrium reflect but I found it fairly confusing to use. It kept asking about XML syntax stuff.
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That's just if you want to save the profile to use again in the future (and is needed for incremental backups).

I've tried a few others to test and one (annoyingly I can't remember the name now) couldn't even restore when needed (thankfully I test these things first before relying on them!).

Just stick with Reflect, free or paid. Even the free one will do incremental backups using the bootable USB option. You'll need to pay (very much worth it in my opinion) if you want to use incremental backups doing a live backup though (though you can use differential backups, which aren't as efficient as incremental, but work just as well).

And yes, Reflect will let you mount images as virtual drives to browse.
 
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Will Macrium work for backing up my main PC to a hard drive in my secondary PC, both of which are connected via my unmanaged switch? And I'd be able to browse and restore individual items and folders?

Is the licence transferable, for if I change PC/re-install Windows etc in the future? :)

Was previously using Crashplan, but when I actually wanted to restore something, most of the stuff it claimed to be backing up wasn't there!! :(
 
Acme said:
Will Macrium work for backing up my main PC to a hard drive in my secondary PC, both of which are connected via my unmanaged switch? And I'd be able to browse and restore individual items and folders?

Is the licence transferable, for if I change PC/re-install Windows etc in the future? :)(
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Regarding the first question, yes both the live Windows program and the rescue media (bootable USB/CD) can backup to mapped drives.

And I'm guessing you can activate it on another Windows install, but whether its transferable or not I've got no idea (I assume it's like most software, where it can only be installed on one PC at a time). Though the rescue media can be used on as many PCs as you like as it's just a bootable USB/CD so it hasn't got a clue.
 
Toxophilus said:
I use Acronis. I have had to restore odd files and even full machines at times with it and its never let me down.
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Acronis is fine and we use a slightly older version of it at work. My only complaint is that the home version got a bit bloaty over the years (though I haven't tried it for a few versions) and as far as I can see there's still no free option (unless you get a free copy with an SSD, as some used to do).
 
I'm using the home version (2014 IIRC) and it does not seem too bad. Although I do use it in a very simple way rather than using the continuous backup system that it has as I don't really need that running RAID 0
 
Toxophilus said:
I'm using the home version (2014 IIRC) and it does not seem too bad. Although I do use it in a very simple way rather than using the continuous backup system that it has as I don't really need that running RAID 0
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RAID is for redundancy, not backup. RAID does not protect against data corruption, accidental deletion, etc.
 
KIA said:
RAID is for redundancy, not backup. RAID does not protect against data corruption, accidental deletion, etc.
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Cheers, I am aware of that. I use RAID 1 for redundancy to hopefully give me a recovery window if I loose a disk. I make sure that I do regular controlled backups of my system to allow me to recover anything critial.

Accidental corruption and deletion are risks that we all take with computers everyday. Running a continuous backup system such the one Acronis can provide does add an overhead to your system which is one that I don't want, but it can help mitigate some accidental deletion and corruption issues.

The problem comes in deciding how many backups you want and how far back you want to be able to recover.

There are cloud back up systems and again Acronis provide one but I have never liked them. No matter how secure and diligent with your data a provider claims to be you have still lost control of it.
 
Toxophilus said:
There are cloud back up systems and again Acronis provide one but I have never liked them. No matter how secure and diligent with your data a provider claims to be you have still lost control of it.
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Use a trust no one solution such as Duplicati or Syncovery.
 
KIA said:
Use a trust no one solution such as Duplicati or Syncovery.
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Never heard of these solutions. I'm still of the mind set that even encrypted your files are there under the control of another party so you have sill lost some control. So personally, I only ever use the cloud for things that are not sensitive.

I am not saying that I am Anti cloud solutions in fact I'm quite the opposite, I'm just very picky with how and what I use them for.
 
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