PC Backup Software?

[qquake2k]

I know there are some computer gurus here, and I'd like to get some recommendations and opinions on backup software. I want something that backs up EVERYTHING, including all installed software. I use Acronis True Image at work, but when my hard drive crashed a few months ago, I couldn't get it to recover anything. It kept telling me there was no image. I also haven't been happy with their support, which is email only. Luckily, I took it to a local place that was able to clone my old hard drive to the new one. What do you all use? Have any of you had to use it after a crash? I'd prefer something that includes phone support if I need it. I hear a lot about Norton Ghost, but I've had bad experiences in the past with Norton anti-virus. Still, I'm open to any and all suggestions.

 

[troj]

The upside to something like Ghost is that it creates an image of your drive, and saves it somewhere. So, you can restore the system exactly to that image.

The downside is it restores a full image, as opposed to individual files.

If you want file-level backups, you can look at Crash Plan; a coworker is using it, and is very pleased with it.

Me? I have four drives in my computer, one of which is just backups -- at 3AM every day, a process (a crude one, but it works) copies the stuff I care about to the 4th drive, in case of a drive failure. In addition, I have another process that copies to an external drive, on a regular basis.

My long-term plan is to drop another external drive at my parent's house, across town. I'll setup Crash Plan to push their data to a drive here, and on my computer to push to a drive at their house.

I don't care about apps; reinstalling is work, but I find that Windows needs to be reinstalled about every 2 years, anyway.

-Kevin

 

[jpummil]

The upside to something like Ghost is that it creates an image of your drive, and saves it somewhere. So, you can restore the system exactly to that image.

The downside is it restores a full image, as opposed to individual files.

If you want file-level backups, you can look at Crash Plan; a coworker is using it, and is very pleased with it.

Me? I have four drives in my computer, one of which is just backups -- at 3AM every day, a process (a crude one, but it works) copies the stuff I care about to the 4th drive, in case of a drive failure. In addition, I have another process that copies to an external drive, on a regular basis.

My long-term plan is to drop another external drive at my parent's house, across town. I'll setup Crash Plan to push their data to a drive here, and on my computer to push to a drive at their house.

I don't care about apps; reinstalling is work, but I find that Windows needs to be reinstalled about every 2 years, anyway.

-Kevin

Same here Kev...

Linux, but have a /data drive and a /data-bak drive which gets a fresh write regularly.

 

[bobby_hamill]

there is a back up option for windows as well
I know windows xp and windows 7 has this option

Bobby

 

[Marc_G]

I've been a "backer-upper" as long as I've had computers. And I've had a few catastrophic failures that I quickly recovered from, due to having good backups. But as time goes on, the new reality of how our hardware, software, and data work together has been changing my approach.

First, I do routine full disc backups with Acronis True Image. Every couple of months, or before any significant software change (like when I updated to Windows 7 SP1 from the previous original Windows 7). I know you had some problems with it, but there are several ways to implement it. I use the 2011 Home version of it, BTW. HAven't updated the software in a while, but it works fine for me.

I make the backups in either of two ways, and have found either one to work as well as the other. My preferred and traditional way is to boot the True Image from a USB key, and have it copy my system/data drive to an external USB drive. It saves it as a .TIB file that can be restored if need be after replacing say a failed hard drive. I have done full restores and individual file restores from the TIB files many times, and only rarely needed to repair anything afterward. More recently, I've made the backups from within Windows using Acronis' Windows version of the software. I resisted doing this for years after they brought it out, but eventually I became comfortable. These are just as restorable as the backups made from the boot version of the program.

The key is to backup the entire disc including any system reserved partitions. Not just data (Acronis offers various options). And to make the backup to AN EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE. Or at least a secondary hard drive in the computer. Don't just put it on some other partition of the main system drive, since if that fails, you lose the backup. And skip the whole Acronis Reserved Partition thing. That's bollux.

I then take my backup file, on an external hard drive, and put it in my safe deposit box in case my house burns down or is robbed and computer stuff stolen etc.. I rotate several, and have a recent image at home as well as offsite at the bank.

I had other ways to back up the data (pictures, data files of all types etc)in between my full system backups, but now I just use the Carbonite service for online backup. I love having all my data files available in the cloud and I can access them via my Android phone or my wife's iPhone. This has been handy. I set it to back things up while I sleep so there's no performance hit.

So now, if my hard drive fries, I can be back up and running in less than an hour after getting the new drive plugged in, first by restoring the main image from the Acronis backup with all system and programs installed and most data, then by restoring any recent data files from the Carbonite cloud, which were created between the Acronis backup and the drive failure.

If the computer itself dies, I wouldn't want to restore the Acronis image because drivers and such would need to be different on the new computer, but I would reinstall the OS fresh as well as the software, then restore the various data files from the Acronis image from within Windows. And finally top it off by restoring from Carbonite any residual files since the last Acronis backup.

This is a strategy that works for me and requires remarkably little effort (<10 minutes of my involvement time per month, not counting the trip to the bank). And I have great peace of mind.

There are lots of other strategies and tools including the built in Windows options; I'm sure others will talk about their experiences with them.

Marc

 

[dpower]

I gave up trying to back up entire drives years ago, when tape drives went away. I now just back up data folders using Microsoft's SyncToy, to USB hard drives.

 

[mkadams001]

subscribe to carbonite https://www.carbonite.com/en/v2/index

 

[bjphoenix]

If you want to be able to backup and restore installed programs then you will have to do an image backup. Acronis can do it but it is also a complicated process because of complicated partitioning schemes that might be in place depending on your OS and if you have more than one OS installed. I studied this recently when I was going to clone my Win7 laptop to an SSD. I read so many bad things about Acronis that I went with a program called EASEUS and it worked perfectly.

If you want to just backup data files there are lots of ways to do it. I most often used plain old windows XCOPY to copy from one drive to another. I use the option that copies only new and changed files and that way it runs very quickly. When we got a NAS device on our work network to supplement the Linux server XCOPY didn't work well because of problems with the way the NAS handled dates so I picked a more robust backup program called SYNCBACK.

 

[o1d_dude]

Similar to Carbonite, Jungle Disk is highly thought of by Steve Gibson of the Gibson Research Center (Spinrite 6).

I listen to his weekly podcast "Security Now" and he recently did a comparison of all the online backup offerings. Jungle Disk was one he liked. TNO = Trust No One, meaning all the encryption occurs on your PC before uploading for backup/storage.

 

[JordanT]

I have to admit that I gave up system imaging several years ago. I decided it wasn't worth the hassle and high likelihood of failure (I've been unable to restore fully from both Ghost and TrueImage in the past). Often, it takes just one messed up file to screw up the whole system to where you wished youd restored from scratch.

I have a small, cheap laptop ($300 before upgrades) which I use when I'm out of the office that has most of my apps installed. It can work in a pinch for most of my critical functions. For data, I use SyncBack to mirror all of my real files to a second hard drive in my PC, and to a an UnRaid server on the other side of my house (one fault tolerant array, easy to use). I use SpiderOak to back up my "unlosable" files - work, personal docs, photos - offsite. It's not 100% friendly, but if you have an old student (.edu) account you can get 200GB for $100/yr, and the service is "zero knowledge" meaning they can't decrypt your stuff. Gotta be careful though - they can't even reset your password; if you lose it, it's gone.

 

[qquake2k]

If you want to be able to backup and restore installed programs then you will have to do an image backup. Acronis can do it but it is also a complicated process because of complicated partitioning schemes that might be in place depending on your OS and if you have more than one OS installed. I studied this recently when I was going to clone my Win7 laptop to an SSD. I read so many bad things about Acronis that I went with a program called EASEUS and it worked perfectly.

If you want to just backup data files there are lots of ways to do it. I most often used plain old windows XCOPY to copy from one drive to another. I use the option that copies only new and changed files and that way it runs very quickly. When we got a NAS device on our work network to supplement the Linux server XCOPY didn't work well because of problems with the way the NAS handled dates so I picked a more robust backup program called SYNCBACK.

I sure don't like Acronis, but EASUS looks pretty good. Has anybody heard of the Clickfree C6 drives?

https://www.clickfree.com/index.php/product_grouping_matrix/matrix_view/id/C6D

 

[Demetri21]

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[Demetri21]

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