[bgdave1]

I wanted to get some recommendations from the community here. What's the best backup software and why?

[Squashman]

Cobain because it is free.

[bgdave1]

I can appreciate free, but free isn't always the best. I was dealing with a Microsoft engineer this week and he recommended One Care from Microsoft, however it doesn't get very good reviews. What is the BEST?

[Speakersrock]

Well A microsoft engineer is always going to recommend a MS program!

There are many out there, and most of them are actually relatively good. Are you wanting to backup to another Hard drive/cd/mem stick you have? or do you want a remove service you can backup to over the internet?

If you want a list to choose from, there is a site (see the link below) which is by a very big, and trusted company, with reviews of several backup programs.

http://www.download.com/Backup-Softw...-2242_4-0.html

If you want something free, and to compress your files as well, I use Back2Zip, but compressing the backup isn't always a great idea.

Hope that helps in some way

[Stoner]

I've used several different applications for backup.
Karenware's Replicator works just fine for me, backing up to external hard drives. It's simple to use, free and I've had no issues with backups.

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

I also backup to a DVD using Nero6. It's simplistic and I already had Nero installed.


I also use and like Quicksync3 for real time backups on an offline computer, but it's no longer available.

[raybro]

I've never used any of the free backup progs suggested obove, so cannot comment about them. I have, however, used Acronis True Image on both my desktop and laptop and am very happy with the progs perfomance. It's available in both CD form or a download. Acronis has a comprehensive update site and reasonably good tech support thru a forum on wildersecurity site.

Raybro

[Speakersrock]

Originally Posted by raybro

I've never used any of the free backup progs suggested obove, so cannot comment about them. I have, however, used Acronis True Image on both my desktop and laptop and am very happy with the progs perfomance. It's available in both CD form or a download. Acronis has a comprehensive update site and reasonably good tech support thru a forum on wildersecurity site.

Raybro

Excellent point there, which I had forgotten about. If you want something very straight forward to use encase of massive disaster on your hard drive, or if windows goes wrong, just restoring an Acronis image is a great option.

[Squashman]

Originally Posted by bgdave1

I can appreciate free, but free isn't always the best. I was dealing with a Microsoft engineer this week and he recommended One Care from Microsoft, however it doesn't get very good reviews. What is the BEST?

I can pretty much guarantee that Cobain is better than OneCare.

[new tech guy]

Ive done somthing a little unorthodox and run mine from batch files that run whenever a user logs onto windows. Simple and light on recources and gets the job done simply put. It is so light in fact that it can run while you use the pc.

[redoak]

"Cobian" for data files backup! Don't worry about its being free.

I have seen some recent, very negative criticism of Acronis' "TrueImage," which is used for backing up an entire drive for reinstalling the system after a disaster. One apparent problem is that it sometimes places a backup on a USB exterior hard drive that can't be used, even though it says the image is good.

Below is a list of backup programs provided by the Moderator "Evandil."

{redoak}

Imaging and Cloning utlities - Elvandil, TSG, 5-08

Free Drive Cloners/Imagers:

SystemRescueCD
EaseUs Disk Copy (Copies disks or partitions)
XXClone
CloneZilla GParted LiveCD (Complete partitioning and drive imaging/restoration tools)
CloneZilla
Partition Saving
PCI CloneMaxx
Drive Image XML
HDClone
DriveClonerXP
Self-Image
copyr.dma (Copies disk with bad sectors for recovery)

Commercial Apps:

O&O DiskImage
Acronis True Image Home
Farstone Drive Clone (Drive image, snapshots, file/folder backups.)
EAZ-FIX Professional and Easy Image
Drive Snapshot
Keriver Image
Avanquest Copy Commander
Paragon Drive Backup
NovaBackup
R-Drive Image
Norton Ghost
HDClone Pro or Enterprise
Terabyte Image for Windows
Terabyte Image for DOS (can directly access FAT, FAT32, and NTFS partitions)
Spotmau Disk Clone & Backup

[raybro]

Originally Posted by redoak

"Cobian" for data files backup! Don't worry about its being free.

I have seen some recent, very negative criticism of Acronis' "TrueImage," which is used for backing up an entire drive for reinstalling the system after a disaster. One apparent problem is that it sometimes places a backup on a USB exterior hard drive that can't be used, even though it says the image is good.

Not knowing the specific criticism to which you refer, I cannot comment on it. However, I have set up my laptop external enclosure (with a WD HDD inside) to be Acronis bootable. This precludes the need for an Acronis boot CD or any other boot method. I simply go into BIOS at startup and change the boot order to have the USB HDD before the internal HDD. The machine then boots directly into Acronis. The backup images are stored on the same HDD. I can then restore the entire internal drive to the last image, restore selected partitions, or retrieve specific files. I've used it a number of times with no problem whatever.

Raybro

[Stoner]

Originally Posted by redoak

"Cobian" for data files backup! Don't worry about its being free.

I have seen some recent, very negative criticism of Acronis' "TrueImage," which is used for backing up an entire drive for reinstalling the system after a disaster. One apparent problem is that it sometimes places a backup on a USB exterior hard drive that can't be used, even though it says the image is good.
..................

I've read of this also, but I've reinstalled Acronis images from both USB2 drives and a slide in enclosure with out any problems.

If you have a Maxtor/Seagate hard drive attached, Diskwizard is a free download and has a version of Acronis that works well for me.

[new tech guy]

I personally run a NAS as my network has quite a few pcs on it and find that a very nice solution. I run both the batch files to it and acronis as well. I have an external enclosure with a seagate hd in it (pulled from a desktop). I use that either if a system has such a severe problem where it cannot run over a network (beleive me the speed is very different) or if i am working on a client i use that drive to image the original setup of the pc incase i have to undo for whatever reason. Usually my batches just dump to the nas but can be set for any location on the pc with a drive letter. Best of all, you pay nothing and no software is ever installed for those backups. By the way, if you purchase acronis, there are options in there just to do data backups.

[bgdave1]

What version of acronis would you recommend?

[raybro]

The latest version (the last time I checked) was v11. I purchased v10 for a better price from newegg and am quite satisfied with it. After install and regeristing with Acronis, I updated to the latest build for v10 (build 4292).

Raybro