Need recommendation for backup program.

[Jerilynn]

What is the current Boglehead backup program du jour for PCs?

I'd like something that backs up everything so in the event of a bad hard drive, all I would need to do is buy a new one and restore everything back to it.
Any ideas?
TIA

[bobcat2]

ShadowProtect Desktop.

ShadowProtect costs more than Acronis True Image (ATI) or Norton Ghost and it doesn't do as many flashy things as ATI does, but ShadowProtect is very fast and more importantly, very reliable. The same cannot be said of some of my past experiences with ATI.

Link to review. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2365691,00.asp

BobK

[SSSS]

The backup program that came with Windows XP was good.

The backup program that comes with Windows 7 is very different, but also good.

[madbrain]

What is the current Boglehead backup program du jour for PCs?

I'd like something that backs up everything so in the event of a bad hard drive, all I would need to do is buy a new one and restore everything back to it.
Any ideas?
TIA

Acronis True Image home will do what you want.

[orlandoman]

GFI Backup 2012 ... Free & great!
http://www.gfi.com/pages/backup-freeware.asp

[Lacrocious]

Recommend CrashPlan. Can choose to backup to your own computers (or friends) for free or to their cloud for a fair, low price. Has family plans for multiple PCs.

- L

[archbish99]

If you want an image backup to a second local hard drive for a single PC, use what's built in to Windows 7. If you want image backup of multiple computers (and you're a geek ), consider Windows Home Server. If you want file backup of one or several computers, use CrashPlan.

The big difference is that with an image backup, you take a blank hard drive and boot from a restore disk, point it at the backup and the new hard drive, and when it's done you can boot and pick up where you left off. With a file backup, you take a blank hard drive, reinstall the OS, reinstall all your programs including the backup software, then point it at the backup and get all your documents back. The personal files are generally the most irreplaceable things on your computer, but there's something to be said for being able to get your PC back exactly as it was after replacing the failed component.

[jebmke]

I tested Crashplan for about a month. The Windows service randomly stopped working rendering the automated backup unreliable. Further, the service did not automatically start when the computer rebooted despite the fact that the service was set to automatic. Emails traded with their tech support produced the recommendation to make some fairly obscure tweaks to the memory settings in the ini file. I elected not to make these changes and test further. A consumer based product should not rely on the consumer to intervene like this (even though I am perfectly comfortable making these changes).

IMO a good back up system should have bulletproof reliability on backup and restore. Features are nice, speed is nice but if the back up doesn't work reliably and the restore is uncertain, the system is useless for its intended purpose. Once a backup system is deployed, the user should do test restores, frequently at first and then less frequently (but regularly) once the restore is proven and the user is comfortable that he/she knows how to restore the data.

[lwfitzge]

I use cloud back-up Carbonite....$59/yr, unlimited data

[Padlin]

In our shop at work we use Acronis Backup and Restore and Ghost PE, both work fine with Acronis being the choice of us techs and Ghost being the corporate standard. Acronis is more refined, Ghost is kind of basic but both work. The Black Armour USB hard drive (Seagate) I bought for my home pc's backups came with BlackArmour software for one touch backups. It also works fine (remember to burn a boot disc) and was free with the drive. BlackArmour is the easiest to use of the bunch.

[ilisira]

On the windows machines, I backup to the Windows Home Server which has redundant hard drives (incremental daily backups, and it keeps weekly/monthly full backups). For the Mac I am using, I connect an external hard drive once a week or so to use the Time Machine.

[climber2020]

In addition to standard backup procedures, I keep 2 separate 32 gig USB drives containing only my photos and important scanned documents. One stays in a small fireproof safe in my apartment, the other stays in the trunk of my car. Hopefully both don't burn down on the same day

[bertilak]

At least check out CrashPlan before settling on anything else. Be sure you understand their unique features:

1. Block-level incremental backup (as opposed to the less efficient and more common file-level)
2. De-duplication (recognizes identical blocks across multiple files and only needs to upload one copy)
3. Near continuous backup (defaults to every 15 minutes)
4. The three backup strategies supported:
   
   
   • Cloud backup to their servers (This is the only one you have to pay for, otherwise the program itself is free.)
   • Internet backup to anyone else who has CrashPlan installed (with their permission, of course)
   • Backup to local hard drive (presumably an external drive, but not required)
5. Files *never* deleted from backup destination unless you explicitly allow it

The first two items above make the third practical and make the backup process completely unobtrusive.

Note that Carbonite does not support *any* of the above. Most importantly, files you delete are not saved past 30 days, nor are versions of the files over 30 days old kept if there are newer versions (within 30 days).

[Lacrocious]

I tested Crashplan for about a month. The Windows service randomly stopped working rendering the automated backup unreliable. Further, the service did not automatically start when the computer rebooted despite the fact that the service was set to automatic. Emails traded with their tech support produced the recommendation to make some fairly obscure tweaks to the memory settings in the ini file. I elected not to make these changes and test further. A consumer based product should not rely on the consumer to intervene like this (even though I am perfectly comfortable making these changes).

IMO a good back up system should have bulletproof reliability on backup and restore. Features are nice, speed is nice but if the back up doesn't work reliably and the restore is uncertain, the system is useless for its intended purpose. Once a backup system is deployed, the user should do test restores, frequently at first and then less frequently (but regularly) once the restore is proven and the user is comfortable that he/she knows how to restore the data.

Hmm... Never had those problems - but I agree with you - it needs to be working all the time and you need to be comfortable with it. I have been using CrashPlan for ~2.5 years now and never experienced what you are experiencing. I have my parents PC's backed up to my server for free. When they travel to their vacation condo, things continue to be backed up. I have the CrashPlan+ plan - backing to their cloud. Other than the slow backup at first, I have been happy.

- L

[Lacrocious]

One BIG thing to do, regardless of what tool you choose to use is:

Periodically restore files to to validate that the backup and restore process works.

A Backup that has never been tested should not be considered a backup. Backup Tools fail on occasion or your Hard Drive fails or something glitches. Test Test Test.

- L

[jebmke]

One BIG thing to do, regardless of what tool you choose to use is:

Periodically restore files to to validate that the backup and restore process works.

A Backup that has never been tested should not be considered a backup. Backup Tools fail on occasion or your Hard Drive fails or something glitches. Test Test Test.

- L

This is usually overlooked by many. Years ago (more than I wish to think about), I worked at a company that had a large VAX cluster in use by engineering for critical engineering data. Someone finally decided to check the back up tapes and discovered that despite the good news messages from Mr. VAX ("backup complete"), there was nothing on the tape. They had been religiously running nightly backups and having an offsite service come and pick up the tapes daily. All the tapes were blank. Fortunately they found this before they actually needed to recover lost data.

[chaz]

Acronis is good.

[grabiner]

In addition to standard backup procedures, I keep 2 separate 32 gig USB drives containing only my photos and important scanned documents. One stays in a small fireproof safe in my apartment, the other stays in the trunk of my car. Hopefully both don't burn down on the same day

Similarly, I back up my important files manually to a CD every year (usually, just after doing my taxes), and keep the CD in a safe deposit box. I have used several different backup programs, but this CD has exactly what I put on it, and it isn't in the same place as the computer.

[HardKnocker]

I use SyncBack Free. http://www.2brightsparks.com/freeware/freeware-hub.html

It's a free program that backs up to your external hard drive. Works very well.

[dratkinson]

On my old system(s) (currently Win98SE), I've backed up my data using tape drives (Irwin, Colorado, Iomega), a glass disc drive (Syquest), DVD/RW, and the resident OS system backup.

I haven't liked any of them as the process required:
(1) a deliberate step to initial the backup or to retrieve the data,
(2) or media handling was required,
(3) or the media degraded or the system was too fragile,
(4) or a proprietary data structure prevented my directly accessing my data.

I wanted something more automatic to initial, required no media handling, was more reliable, and natural to retrieve my data.

I found my ideal solution in the old DOS utilities and a second HD. (I don't believe these old utilities are included on newer PCs.)

For more than a decade, I've used a DOS batch file in my system startup directory to automatically xcopy32 all of my parent data directories (MyDocuments, Utilities,...) to a second HD.

With my system CDROMs, my backup HD, and a checklist.txt (also backed up), I've rebuilt my old system many times.

And if I accidentally delete something, it is immediately and directly accessible on the second HD.



N.B. The need to frequently rebuild my old system ended when I began using SpinRite (v6) to regularly recondition my HDs. (I'm a happy customer.)

[Lacrocious]

@dratkinson - I did many of the same things you have done. I now use Crash Plan. Some people don't like cloud backup or proprietary backup formats. I would suggest moving beyond XCopy, although it is still present in Win7. You could use Robocopy and have a slight improvement (standard on all Win7, earlier Windows OS's needed it added via Windows Resource Kits from Microsoft). Better yet would be something like SyncBackSE that HardKnocker recommended. I have used the paid version for years as well. It let you make mirror copies of your files. It also allows for versioning - so you can keep 3 or 5 or more copies of files that change. You can also have it hang onto deleted files for period of time (in the same place the versions are stored). That way, you can restore a deleted file if you don't realize it is gone until your xcopy has already run. I don't remember the differences between SyncBackSE Free or Paid - but it is ~$30 - so not too expensive and very useful. See: http://www.2brightsparks.com

I also like that you can have it compress files. It can use windows compression or if you want more advanced compression or encryption - you can use a WinZip compatible format. If you use the Zip or Zip + Encryption - you can use most WinZip utilities to unzip the archive - you are not locked into a proprietary format. ( I guess i don't consider Zip format to be proprietary).

As always - test your backups

- L

[Toons]

I am currently using Apple ,Amazon,and Google cloud storage (each 5gigs free ,don't need that much yet) to back up all personal DATA files.Picture and Video files are backed up to one of several computers
If the hard drive fails its no big deal ,computers are a commodity these days and you can pick up one for a few hundred dollars,personal files are what matter to me

[RedJones]

Start with the requirements for adequate backup:

1. must be able to restore all files and the OS in a single step to a replacement drive, i.e. not necessary to re-install and re-patch the operating system
2. must be able to verify the backup without additional hardware. This means you should be able to restore an individual file from time to time from the backup. Since you need a bootable backup you should also boot from it occasionally. All this should be easy and safe, which is to say, does not endanger your source disk or files.
3. more efficient if software can do an incremental backup after an initial image backup.

Requirement #2 precludes using backup systems with proprietary storage formats like Acronis. When I last used Acronis a few years ago the only was to verify the backup was to perform an actual restore, which makes such a product useless. Backups fail. If you never verify it until you need it, there is a very good chance that it will have failed without your knowing.

I run Windows as a virtual machine on a linux box and use free linux tools to achieve the backup. These products may be useful for meeting the requirements, but I haven't used them:

clonezilla
carbon copy cloner

[dratkinson]

@dratkinson - ... Crash Plan ... Robocopy ... SyncBackSE ...

Thanks, I was wondering what I could use that would keep my old simplicity and direct access when I moved to a new(er) system. I'll look into them.

[k-slice]

Apple, buy time capsule, use time machine. Time capsule=external hard drive.
Dropbox, SugarSync, microsoft skydrive, etc. are kind of cool too.

[TomatoTomahto]

I use cloud back-up Carbonite....$59/yr, unlimited data

+1