File Backup/Recovery software for Windows

[Jim Laumann]

I am looking for recommendations for backup/recovery software (running Windows 7). I've been using the stuff that comes w/ Windows, but I'm not happy with it.

Initially I will be using a DVD as media, but am looking at USB hard drives. I've also got a couple of extra harddrives I could install/use.

I downloaded EaseUS Todo, but I found that it's developers are over in mainland China, and I am trying to refrain from sending my dollars over there - for any product.

I found this thread here on the Creek
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?162328-Backing-up-day-to-day-computer-activities&highlight=backup+software

The software which got the most votes was Syncback. Those of you that have it - still happy with it?

If you are using Syncback - is it the free version, or are you paying for it?

Any votes for Acronis?

Thanks

Jim

[Chuck Wintle]

I am looking for recommendations for backup/recovery software (running Windows 7). I've been using the stuff that comes w/ Windows, but I'm not happy with it.

Initially I will be using a DVD as media, but am looking at USB hard drives. I've also got a couple of extra harddrives I could install/use.

I downloaded EaseUS Todo, but I found that it's developers are over in mainland China, and I am trying to refrain from sending my dollars over there - for any product.

I found this thread here on the Creek
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?162328-Backing-up-day-to-day-computer-activities&highlight=backup+software

The software which got the most votes was Syncback. Those of you that have it - still happy with it?

If you are using Syncback - is it the free version, or are you paying for it?

Any votes for Acronis?

Thanks

Jim
its the free version of syncback that i use and it work well.

[David G Baker]

I use Carbonite and pay around $150 a year. I have not had to use it yet so I can't say how good or bad it is. I figured that the $150 was not a lot more than a new well made hard drive and the anxiety that goes along with trying to recover lost files. I also have 1T USB hard drive that I save my important files on. I have not had a lot of luck with the free or cheap back up software.

[George Bokros]

My server backs up automatically every day to Norton as past of the Norton 360 Premier Edition and is included in the annual maintenance for virus pattern updates and other security protection.

[Mike Henderson]

I use Carbonite and pay around $150 a year. I have not had to use it yet so I can't say how good or bad it is. I figured that the $150 was not a lot more than a new well made hard drive and the anxiety that goes along with trying to recover lost files. I also have 1T USB hard drive that I save my important files on. I have not had a lot of luck with the free or cheap back up software.
I use Carbonite also. It backs up automatically and immediately, and the backup is kept off site.

Mike

[Darryl Hazen]

Another vote for Carbonite. I've used it for years. Had to download files from Carbonite back to computer. Worked great. Well worth the money.

[Eric DeSilva]

I've become a fan of bitcasa. Everything is encrypted on your machine prior to being sent up to bitcasa. I pay $99 per year, and I use it to back up my 6TB NAS RAID and several computers to boot. I can access my media files using special apps for the iPhone/iPad and by logging in through any browser. And, it isn't plagued with the really slow upload times that I had to deal with when using Mozy--Mozy would take weeks to try and upload files because the upload rate was horrendous. No restrictions on how often you access your data or delays in getting it back. And it allows you to roll back to prior versions if you save over something that you previously uploaded.

[Bill Huber]

Another Carbonite user, I love it, don't have to worry about it and I can also get to all my backed up files from my tablet.

If you don't want to use an off site backup, take a look at Second Copy, a great program and it is easy to use and you can back up anything you want. You can set it to auto backup or you can also have manual backup of other things.

You can set it to do your backup and to keep a copy of deleted files.

http://www.secondcopy.com/

They do have a free trail version.

[John Coloccia]

I tried a the Acronis demo and liked it. As soon as I have a chance, I need to purchase a license.

[Curt Harms]

its the free version of syncback that i use and it work well.

Syncback is what I used with Windows as well. I was synchronizing a disk directory to a flash drive. Plug the flash drive in, start syncback, click the profile, okay the changes, done. Of course this was with modest quantities of data, probably less than 100 MB./session.

[Chuck Wintle]

Another Carbonite user, I love it, don't have to worry about it and I can also get to all my backed up files from my tablet.

If you don't want to use an off site backup, take a look at Second Copy, a great program and it is easy to use and you can back up anything you want. You can set it to auto backup or you can also have manual backup of other things.

You can set it to do your backup and to keep a copy of deleted files.

http://www.secondcopy.com/

They do have a free trail version.

The problem with offsite is, IMHO, the availability of said files all of the time. If carbonite go out of business what happens to the files....and who else may be looking at them?:D

[Brian Elfert]

The problem with offsite is, IMHO, the availability of said files all of the time. If carbonite go out of business what happens to the files....and who else may be looking at them?:D

What is the likelihood that you would have your hard drive crash and your cloud backup provider goes out of business on the same day? Personally, I want to have both an on-site and an off-site back of my stuff. My on-site backup would be gone if the house got destroyed or if my laptop and hard drive were stolen. My parents have two external hard drives they rotate backups on every month or so. They keep one drive at my house and swap them, but that solution means the data is a month old in a disaster.

[Brian Elfert]

Which online backup vendors offer the ability to have a complete image of your PC in the cloud that could be used to re-image the PC if it is stolen/destroyed or the drive fails? Acronis does this, but they charge $190 a year which is a little rich for my tastes. Of course, losing irreplaceable data could make $189 seem cheap.

[Harry Hagan]

What is the likelihood that you would have your hard drive crash and your cloud backup provider goes out of business on the same day? Personally, I want to have both an on-site and an off-site back of my stuff. My on-site backup would be gone if the house got destroyed or if my laptop and hard drive were stolen. My parents have two external hard drives they rotate backups on every month or so. They keep one drive at my house and swap them, but that solution means the data is a month old in a disaster.

Ditto

I had a back-up drive crash last year that was unrecoverable. My computer tech told me that lost data is one of the main reasons small businesses fail and that he has people asking him to recover data on crashed drives nearly every day. He highly recommended Carbonite or similar services.

Store your data off site.

[Matt Meiser]

What don't you like about Windows 7's built in backup? I'm using Windows Home Server's version which is a close relative of that and its worked quite well for us. I've done a couple hard drive replacements and its a snap--pop in the recovery CD, connect up to the home server, and start a restore. An hour or two later its like nothing ever happened. I've also used it to pull an old version of a file no problem.

The biggest problem I have with with 7's with versions lower than Pro is that the drive has to be physically attached. My work machine running pro does a nightly backup to a NAS using the built-in backup and unless it encounters a network issue, its problem-free.

[Bill Huber]

The problem with offsite is, IMHO, the availability of said files all of the time. If carbonite go out of business what happens to the files....and who else may be looking at them?:D

I guess if Carbinite went broke and your hard drive went south on the same day you would have a problem.

Now if you had a good external drive, USB, ESATA or Firewire connected to your computer to keep things backed up and the house got hit by lighting in most cases the computer and external drive would be gone.

So I guess the question is do I want to take a chance on losing it all or do I want to put it on a cloud server and take a chance that the company and your hard drive go south on the same day. Oh yes that surge protector on the computer will do nothing to stop a direct hit from lighting.

[Eric DeSilva]

That's exactly what I do--I use Acronis to image my HD to my NAS, then the NAS gets backed up to bitcasa.com. I spend the money for TrueImage, and pay bitcasa $99/year.

[Larry Browning]

http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-hard-drive-backup-program.htm

and

http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-drive-cloning-software.htm
(http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-drive-cloning-software.htm)
and one more

http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-folder-synchronization-utility.htm

Here's a review of some online backup services.

http://lifehacker.com/five-best-online-backup-services-1006345049

Especially check out CrashPlan. I think it may be the best of the bunch. (I don't use it now, but am giving it serious consideration)

[Curt Harms]

I'm not an IT pro so I'm sure I'm missing something. Why would anyone do an online backup of an entire drive, including the O.S.? A Windows install is tied to a particular machine so what would be the benefit of the O.S. image being available remotely? Data files which can be irreplaceable? Of course, have several copies in different secure places. If I didn't have the O.S. disks, I'd create an image of the entire disk/partition to DVD or Hard drive. I use this to create partition or disk images:

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/image-for-linux.htm

My thinking was that I was more likely to get a clean image of an O.S. if that O.S. was not running at the time. I have done restores in the past and the restored disk booted and functioned as expected.

[Jim Laumann]

What don't you like about Windows 7's built in backup?

Matt

My dislike of Windows 7 back up utility is that it (based on what I can detirmine from reading help text and playing w/ it) wants to do incremental backups. I don't want to screw around w/ having to search multiple DVD's to find a file in a recovery situation.

Maybe I'm dense, slow, or somewhat computer challenged, but that is what I am seeing.

I want backup's to be simple and comprehensive - and to me that is having 3 generations - grandfather / father / son, with all files on each generation. No letting Windows pick and choose.

I will say that I like the Windows image copy concept in addition to the file level copy, but that is not an option when using a DVD as
storage media - I admit I need to get a portable hard drive, or install an additional hard drive (if the mother board has a second hard drive controller).

If there is something I am missing here - by all means - let me know.

Larry: did some perusing last night - thanks for the info.

Others: Thanks for your input. Right now, I am thinking Syncback and Acronis are contenders.


Jim

[Matt Meiser]

Incremental backups is part of the beauty IMHO. We can go back months and restore a file from any day and it all fits within a few TB of storage. Ditch the DVDs and switch to a portable hard drive. That lets you recover from a hard drive failure or user error very quickly. Then, do off-site backups of just your files for disaster recovery. Currently my "offsite" backups go to my shop about 120' from the house which is way better than in the house but not perfect. But soon (very soon, they hung the carrier wire that will support the fiber across my yard yesterday!) we'll have enough bandwidth to back up to cloud storage.

[Larry Browning]

Jim,
I know that many folks have a deep hatred of windows 8, but windows 8 does have some very nice backup enhancements that seem to get overlooked. There is something called File History that will automatically keep versions of data files in a separate location which can be a network drive or an external hard drive. There is also a new windows system backup and restore called recimg. There also a 3rd party program called RecImg Manager that is pretty cool and really enhances recimg. This is now what I use and it works quite well for me.

[Larry Browning]

+1 on ditching the idea of DVD backup. Multiple Terabyte external hard drives can be had for less that $100.
Once I get an idea in my head about how I am going to accomplish something it is hard for me to envision another way to do it. For some reason this is especially true when it comes to PC backup. Try to keep an open mind when it comes to this subject.

[Brian Elfert]

I'm not an IT pro so I'm sure I'm missing something. Why would anyone do an online backup of an entire drive, including the O.S.? A Windows install is tied to a particular machine so what would be the benefit of the O.S. image being available remotely? Data files which can be irreplaceable? Of course, have several copies in different secure places. If I didn't have the O.S. disks, I'd create an image of the entire disk/partition to DVD or Hard drive. I use this to create partition or disk images:


I want an image of my PC so if my hard drive fails I can simply put in another hard drive, boot from the recovery media, and have a working PC in a few hours without a bunch of manual work. I don't want to spend hours reinstalling the OS and then reinstalling all my programs, and then copying all my data. It is inevitable that I will be missing something and maybe not realize it until months down the road when I need to use that software.