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  3. Best free backup software

Best free backup software

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  • B bwilhite

    For Windows...what would you recommend?

    M Offline
    M Offline
    MrPlankton
    wrote on last edited by
    #9

    I would recommend getting the best and not the cheapest, a backup failure can ruin your career. My vote is with Acronis Server Imager

    MrPlankton

    B 1 Reply Last reply
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    • D David Stone

      El Corazon wrote:

      For the price, nothing beats DIX that I have found.

      Doesn't that sorta violate the kid sister rule? :rolleyes:

      E Offline
      E Offline
      El Corazon
      wrote on last edited by
      #10

      you know who you are... ;P

      _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)

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      • E El Corazon

        you know who you are... ;P

        _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)

        D Offline
        D Offline
        David Stone
        wrote on last edited by
        #11

        Hey, I'm 21...that's really the only excuse I've got...other than "I'm male." :-O

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        • M MrPlankton

          I would recommend getting the best and not the cheapest, a backup failure can ruin your career. My vote is with Acronis Server Imager

          MrPlankton

          B Offline
          B Offline
          bwilhite
          wrote on last edited by
          #12

          Thank you kindly for the advice... :) This is not for business use at all and I'm still trying to figure out exactly what features I'll need. So I'm mainly looking for a starting point.

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          • B bwilhite

            For Windows...what would you recommend?

            R Offline
            R Offline
            Ravi Bhavnani
            wrote on last edited by
            #13

            If you're looking for something simple and extremely free, check out EZBackup[^]. /ravi

            My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Music | Articles | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com

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            • B bwilhite

              For Windows...what would you recommend?

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              M Offline
              Mike Dimmick
              wrote on last edited by
              #14

              If you're going to start from 'free' look at Windows Backup in the Accessories, System Tools folder. Perfectly capable of backing up files but does not support compression when backing up disk-to-disk. If you have XP Home rather than Professional, Windows Backup is not installed by default nor installable from Add/Remove Windows Components, but is present on the Windows CD.

              DoEvents: Generating unexpected recursion since 1991

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              • D David Stone

                Hey, I'm 21...that's really the only excuse I've got...other than "I'm male." :-O

                L Offline
                L Offline
                Lost User
                wrote on last edited by
                #15

                *Elaine sighs* ;P

                Visit http://www.notreadytogiveup.com/[^] and do something special today.

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                • M Member 96

                  Free? You value your data so little? Ok: Xcopy from a batch file started by windows task scheduler. (hopefully copying to a removable storage device taken offsite daily)


                  When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.

                  H Offline
                  H Offline
                  holdsop
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #16

                  If the *copy route, then RoboCopy: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=9d467a69-57ff-4ae7-96ee-b18c4790cffd&displaylang=en[^] Part of Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools but robocopy works on any Windows. (My first post; that link better look right)

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                  • B bwilhite

                    For Windows...what would you recommend?

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                    P Offline
                    Paul Watson
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #17

                    Hopefully a Windows developer takes inspiration from Time Machine on Mac OS X and builds a Windows clone. It really is the best backup software I have ever used. The best bit about it is I rarely knowingly use it. It just sits in the background backing up and never interferes. I reckon a Windows developer would make some good money building a Time Machine clone.

                    regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa

                    Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:

                    At least he achieved immortality for a few years.

                    K 1 Reply Last reply
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                    • B bwilhite

                      For Windows...what would you recommend?

                      M Offline
                      M Offline
                      matheharry
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #18

                      if you want to stick with free backups then i would recommend to additionally use a free online backup service like mozy (2 GB free) https://mozy.com/[^] :-D

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                      • M matheharry

                        if you want to stick with free backups then i would recommend to additionally use a free online backup service like mozy (2 GB free) https://mozy.com/[^] :-D

                        M Offline
                        M Offline
                        matheharry
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #19

                        a nice list of free backup programs with recommendations can be found here: http://techsupportalert.com[^] ;)

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                        • B bwilhite

                          For Windows...what would you recommend?

                          B Offline
                          B Offline
                          bryanmajury
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #20

                          The backup utility included with XP is good, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308422. Also, free online backups are available from BT digital vault, http://bt.com/digitalvault/ (1GB free) and http://www.mozy.com/ (MozyHome Free - 2GB free). Amazon S3 isn't free but very cheap, http://www.amazon.com/s3/. You can use http://www.jungledisk.com/ which is free, to perform your online backup to your s3 space. I like online backup. Remarkably, I'm not backing anything up at present. I suppose I should address this anomaly, I've heard that hard drives can fail.:~

                          Powered by Microsoft Visual FoxPro 9

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                          • B bwilhite

                            For Windows...what would you recommend?

                            A Offline
                            A Offline
                            AGieg
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #21

                            did you check this program? http://www.z-dbackup.de/download.html it is in german, but has great functions. There is a freeware-version that makes backups up to 4 GB. The professional versions starts at 25€ (~ 30$). Greetings from Germany Andreas

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                            • B bwilhite

                              For Windows...what would you recommend?

                              W Offline
                              W Offline
                              Wambach
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #22

                              Try typing ntbackup /? from a command line and see if it will help.

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                              • B bwilhite

                                For Windows...what would you recommend?

                                T Offline
                                T Offline
                                TorstenH
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #23

                                There is a MS Powertoy called SyncToy. Simple and easy to use. It simply copys/syncs data from a to b - quiet easy for backing up working data to a NAS or so. regards Torsten

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                                • B bwilhite

                                  For Windows...what would you recommend?

                                  C Offline
                                  C Offline
                                  ClockMeister
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #24

                                  I know I'll probably get flamed for this - but I've found the built-in NTBACKUP utility works just fine. Backs up anything important and recovery always works. What more do you need? -CB :D

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                                  • B bryanmajury

                                    The backup utility included with XP is good, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308422. Also, free online backups are available from BT digital vault, http://bt.com/digitalvault/ (1GB free) and http://www.mozy.com/ (MozyHome Free - 2GB free). Amazon S3 isn't free but very cheap, http://www.amazon.com/s3/. You can use http://www.jungledisk.com/ which is free, to perform your online backup to your s3 space. I like online backup. Remarkably, I'm not backing anything up at present. I suppose I should address this anomaly, I've heard that hard drives can fail.:~

                                    Powered by Microsoft Visual FoxPro 9

                                    B Offline
                                    B Offline
                                    bwilhite
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #25

                                    Amazingly yes they do ;P , and even more than one at the same time can do so (that's why I'm here). It's really crappy when you lose the phone numbers for all your college buddies that are scattered here and there. I found mozy yesterday and I'm taking that for a spin as well as Cobian.

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                                    • B bwilhite

                                      For Windows...what would you recommend?

                                      W Offline
                                      W Offline
                                      W Balboos GHB
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #26

                                      Depending upon just how much you wish to backup, many data compression utilites can simply be set to add/update mode. Some, like 7Zip, are free. Hybridize the command-line file with an appropriate call your compression application and you've got an easy backup system. One advantage: if you use a common compression format, you don't need any special tools to restore your files in that time-of-need. [Modification] Here's a sample command line - 7z u archive.zip *.doc updates *.doc files to archive archive.zip.

                                      "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
                                      "How do you find out if you're unwanted if everyone you try to ask tells you to go away?" - Balboos HaGadol

                                      modified on Thursday, February 14, 2008 9:39 AM

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                                      • L Lost User

                                        Paying for Acronis Trueimage[^]. It works. Well.

                                        Visit http://www.notreadytogiveup.com/[^] and do something special today.

                                        D Offline
                                        D Offline
                                        deltalmg
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #27

                                        I agree. We use it at my work, it is very very easy to use and works (I've had to restore from a backup several times and no problems). We've tried scheduling backup tasks to run automatically and save to a network share, that has been hit and miss (we have an older version though so it could have been worked out), but a local backup drive has been no problem.

                                        M 1 Reply Last reply
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                                        • P Paul Watson

                                          Hopefully a Windows developer takes inspiration from Time Machine on Mac OS X and builds a Windows clone. It really is the best backup software I have ever used. The best bit about it is I rarely knowingly use it. It just sits in the background backing up and never interferes. I reckon a Windows developer would make some good money building a Time Machine clone.

                                          regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa

                                          Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:

                                          At least he achieved immortality for a few years.

                                          K Offline
                                          K Offline
                                          Kent K
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #28

                                          I think Windows Home server probably meets your description. With it you can have up to 10 home computers backed up to daily, weekly, and monthly restore points, all done automatically. Also, the claim is complete restoration of the entire system effortlessly upon a system failure that requires rebuilding the machine. I own it and so far haven't had to use that feature but have used the restore-a-file feature several times - it's like being at work but not just having backups available for server stored files - you always know you have a backup up of any file on any machine you have in the house. It acts as a NAS, has IIS 6 running on it too for your web serving pleasure. This part allows retrieving or storing a file on the server from anwhere you have internet access. Ok, I didn't mean for this to sound like an advertisement, just sharing this info as I think for developers with a multi-PC household, you could find this useful. I felt that my developer system - a 2003 Dell that is loaded to the hilt with IDE's and numerous other software development tools would be a real loss if any of the hard drives crapped out. Kent

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