BleepingComputer.com: Backup Software

Does anyone have recommendations of a backup program. I wish to create a complete mirror of the c: drive on an external drive. Best would be something that does it through a scheduler. This is for my wife's system and she tends to forget to do these things as she still believes the PC is an appliance like a refrigerator. She hopes you can just turn it on and it always works and never does anything goofy.

Thanks,

Jim

Moderator Edit: Moved topic to more appropriate forum. ~ Animal

I have used Drive Image by Acronis and liked it, and Acronis True Image is getting a good reputation. True Image is on sell right now at Newegg
Norton has a program called Ghost, but I haven't heard anything nice about it. To my knowledge none of these programs will automatically up date itself, and I don't know of any that do. Perhaps someone else here will know of one.

Symantecs new and improved Ghost is now called "Save and Restore".
It does image based backups,as well as file and folder backups.
You can schedule backups to run automatically,and/or run event triggered backups,i.e when you install new software.
I have found it very user friendly,even tho I swore I'd drink paint thinner before another Norton product ever was installed on my computer again.....
Haven't had to use the Restore feature yet (guess that a good thing!),run my backups once a week to my external HD.
Think you should at least have a look at this product.
Just my Two Cents.

There is cobianbackup, I've never used it but they have a tutorial on this site for it. And it's free.

Imaging creates an exact copy of your drive
Backup creates exact copies of the files backed up.

The difference is that backup doesn't preserve the location of the files on the drive - so it's useless to use to restore your Operating System.

I vote for Acronis True Image, I've used it for quite a while now and it's a great program. My only complaint is that my Toshiba M45 laptop won't run it in regular mode - so I've got to run it in Safe Mode (Acronis Safe Mode, not Windows Safe Mode). When doing this my USB ports are disabled - so I have to image to the Acronis Secure Zone on the laptop hard drive.

Slrman, on Nov 3 2006, 08:49 PM, said:

The backup software doesn't just mirror your partition, it creates a compressed image of the partition. For example True Image creates an image compressed up to 70 percents by default but you can adjust the size of an image in backup settings. As for particular backup program I'd recommend you Acronis True Image. It is very reliable and fully-featured software with simple interface. True Image can execute a scheduled backup, so I think that it will be a right choice for you.

There's one member here who swears by Ghost (The Shadow) - but he's not real active. He's a wealth of knowledge about Ghost and it's abilities. He doesn't recommend the current versions (as I recall) but urges the use of Ghost 2003 from a DOS boot disk (it's been called "abandonware" by some and it's freely available on the web).

As much as I respect and admire him (from other forums we both hang out at) I do disagree with his choice of Ghost and still recommend Acronis True Image.

Thanks to all. I am trying the Acronis program and am very happy with it. I believe this is the one. Thanks again, everyone.

Jim

Good to hear. I was about to post the following, but you've beat me to the punch. However, it may be beneficial to anyone with a similar question.

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Acronis True Image 10 offers a 15 day free trial. However, if you want to see what it can do at your convenience--to really play around with it to see what TI can do, you can get the old version 7 for free. You'll have to register it just as if you had bought it and you may get some nags to upgrade to version 10, but you'll have version 7 free and clear if you go to this page: http://www.acronis.com/mag/vnu-ati7

I've got it installed with no problems or nags so far but haven't had a chance to use it yet. usasma, do you know of any bugs in this version or can you tell us any features it's missing. IOW can you get by with version 7's functionality?

Thanks, Papa kid. I did find version 7. Although it took some searching. LOL I have used it and I really can't see much difference between it and 10.0. What is interesting though, is now that I have 7.0, they are offering me 10.0 at a very substantial discount. At that price, I will likely upgrade. Maybe that was their plan?

Anyway, thanks again to all. This was most rewarding.

Jim

Hi, Jim.
You've made a really good choice. Of course there are some differences between seventh and tenth versions of ATI and you can reveal them if you want. I'm glad that ATI offered you a substantial discount, you are lucky guy!!!!!!

Version 7 was the version that I purchased when I first got into the Acronis products. It was amazing, and seemed much easier to use that later products.

I currently use version 8 of the Acronis True Image Enterprise Edition because of my beta testing with them. Version 8 is (IMO) as easy to use as version 7.

I've tried version 9 and wasn't thrilled by it (plus some negative reviews from friends about the added features) and have a pre-release version 10 sitting on my desktop waiting to be installed.

I'd suggest that you check what each new version offers. If offers a new tool that you can't live without, then upgrade - otherwise stay with what works!

Thanks also from me, PapaKid...

I'm willing to try something new now. Like usasma said, Cobian does regular backups of files, and i prolly need something that does a bit more, like a full image backup...to take away.
Acronis 7 is Free? I'll try it.

max3808

You all are most welcome. As soon as I get some major reorganization done and get my sister's new computer set up and tweaked--and get a DVD burner--I'll be trying it out myself.

Just so everyone knows, there is a similar deal for a free older version of another commercial backup software. Thanks to Mypenry for posting about it here.

I had purchased this version when it was the latest and still use it. It doesn't do full image backups, but meets my needs for quick and automatic backups of certain important files and folders. The drawback of full image backups is that those are extremely large files and those of us with basic setups don't really have a good place to store them. Or don't like the idea of burning one or two dozen CD's.

The main reason I got Winbackup was because of it's ability to write to CD without opening other software. However, that is the only part of the program that is a little buggy so I stopped using it and switched to doing auto backups to a USB (jump) drive.

I haven't tried Cobian yet. From just looking at the features page, it looks OK. I suspect WinBackup is easier to use tho and probably more stable. It's often the case that freeware is written for those of a more technical bent. But anyone who wants to play with it can refer to our tutorial here:

How to backup and restore your data using Cobian Backup

Papakid:
usasma:
YourHighness:

I actually did go into the Tutorial about Cobian, and followed the very clear instructions, and for the past two weeks, it's been BU-ing my Documents folder to my D: drive faithfully.

I think I understand from USASMA that restoring the files is no more than copying the backup directly over the source folder in C:, but I'm not sure I'd do that because it isn't mentioned in the Tutorial yet . I guess it will appear in 'part 2'?

What I'm still looking for is how to send a copy of this backup folder to an OFF-SITE computer on a regular schedule, like hourly...
I don't know anything about FTP or any other method, and I'm still looking, I guess. Is anyone familiar with this process in Cobian?

I tried Ghost 10, but couldn't restore the image successfully 'cause the external Hard disk was connected to an unrecognised USB 2.0 port after the hard disk was replaced. I must have done something wrong...missed a step.
The next thing I need to do is try to use the downloaded Acronis 7 to Image the Hard drive to a DVD, and restore it....

Thanks in advance...

MAX