Do you use backup software? Which?

aristide1 · Post by **aristide1** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 10:05 am

With hard drive prices so low I think a small one for my page file, internet files, and a back or 2 is reasonably priced.

I'm looking at a Seagate 160MB laptop drive for $59, but the backup softyware remains a possible issue.

Thoughts?

AZBrandon · Post by **AZBrandon** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 10:11 am

I use Acronis True Image home edition personally. It lets you create a boot CD so you can boot up from the CD and do a "cold backup" of sorts of your whole OS drive. By having the OS down, that's the most certain way to make sure you can restore that backup to recover the whole OS and all data/applications. It's essentially a bare metal restore. If you just want to save some files, you could get away with free software. For windows, SyncToy from Microsoft is one of the many free tools for doing automated file copies.

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 2:16 pm

http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp

Free.
Very easy to use (my parents can use it).
Many useful options, including a scheduler (which I never use).
Fast (incremental by default - other options are available).
Works with shared drives on your network (so long as you have given it a drive letter).
Full information log about any errors.

Andy

mr. poopyhead · Post by **mr. poopyhead** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 8:17 pm

not sure if you're looking for an imaging software, but i've been using CloneZilla for making fresh images of all the computers in my house. so if mom or dad manage to muck something up, i just pop in the image on CD and reimage the computer...

otherwise, for just backing up emails and junk, i use the windows backup utility...

LodeHacker · Post by **LodeHacker** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 12:22 am

dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb

aristide1 · Post by **aristide1** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 5:47 am

Right now any kind of BU would be good. I will probably try the freebie and then if I don't care for it move to Acronis.

Whole image recovery? Not a bad idea, but not if it means I can't do individual file recovery.

blackworx · Post by **blackworx** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 7:18 am

Weekly backups: Cobian Backup 8
Occasional image backup of system drive: DriveImageXML

Both free, both reliable

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 9:01 am

Windows Home Server - Client Backup.

peteamer · Post by **peteamer** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 9:56 am

syncback