PC backup software recommendations

I'm going to put another big boy hard drive on the PC. Part of what I want to use it for is to do regular automatic backups of important folders. I'm not talking about the OS or a whole hard drive but just certain folders I read and write to on a regular basis. Any recommendations on backup software? Cheap or free is better. Thanks.

It's not free but I like Norton Ghost.

I second the recommendation for Norton Ghost.

Unfortunately, Ghost only does the whole hard drive, not just folders. To overcome that, I've setup a separate drive for my important documents and just simply backup the whole drive instead of folders. I use Ghost V9 to backup my Program/Boot drive and my important documents drive nightly to a separate hard drive, as well as hourly incremental backups of these two drives from 7am to midnight. Ghost also allows you to specify the number of days of backup you want to keep, e.g. 3 days, as well as being able to automatically split the backup file into specific sizes for writing to backup media. e.g. 4350MB for DVD+R

Ghost V9 is different from the earlier versions as this is an enhanced version of Partition Magic since Symantec bought over PowerQuest.

No matter which one you get, being able to schedule the backups is important. I back up my home directory and all the system configuration files every night to tape. I have a 4 tape robot, so it rotates the tapes for me without manual intervention.

Once a month I take out one of the tapes and set it aside, just in case I need it someday.

Make sure your software allows you to restore a single file or directory. It should also allow you to write to disk, tape, cd or dvd. I can't point you to a specific solution since I use unix boxes and windows servers. You don't want to pay $1,000 a year per computer, I'm sure. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I used to use Novastor's products years ago to back up PCs to QIC tape. They did all that I needed. http://www.novastor.com/products.html

Daniel

XCOPY will do a pretty good job, and you already have it.

A program called ROBOCOPY was recommended to me. I believe it is shareware.

SimpleTech's "StorageSync" standard edition is a free download at their site.

I've not used it for regular backups, but have used it to image & backup my system.

I used to swear by Norton Ghost, then I found Trueimage 8. It blows the doors of of ghost.

Yeah, XCopy works nicely for backing up whole directories as-is, and it comes with Windows. The only downside is that it's a command-line app and may be a little intimidating for some.

xp pro has backup software built in to it

I prefer Novaback Workstation by Novastor over Norton Ghost (although I have both on my machine). Novaback is more backup oriented than Ghost. I like that it just does what it is supposed to do without complications. It isn't free ($50), but I think that is a very reasonable price for backup software that works well.

One of the reasons I like it (althought it doesn't sound like this is importaint to you) is that Novaback can make disaster recovery backups. In fact, where I have put this in for small businesses, I just have each backup be a full backup that can be used for diaster recovery. If they have a problem, they can simply boot off the CDROM and then restore the whole system in one easy operation. I also tested this function to verify it worked before putting it into production.

Of course, as people have pointed out, for just backing up some directories, pretty much anything will work. The built in backup facility (depending on the OS version), xcopy, and utilities like Cygwin. Cygwin provides Unix utilities, and so you could script up stuff like rsync, or tar.

-john

I believe Acronis True Image 8 is the best value on the market. I use it for incremental backups to second, internal hard drives, but it can back up to it's own hidden partition or any directory or logical drive on your system.

While I use Ghost for bit-for-bit forensic duplication at work, I much prefer the speed, simplicity and flexibility True Image offers for my personal machines and small business networks. It's MUCH faster than Ghost and allows bare-metal restores from a recovery boot disk. There are many inexpensive and expensive backup options available on the market and I've used most. True Image supports more file formats. It works over a network, and a wide variety of external drives. For home or small business, tis the best there is.

I especially like True Image's ability to run backups in the background. Set the schedule and forget about it until you need to do a restore.

A little known tool in True Image is it's 'explorer' function. While True Image backs up everything on the specified logical drive, afterward you can mount a backup image (or any one of the previous incremental images) as a hard drive on your local machine. That means you can selectively copy out files and directories ... virtually any part of your hard disk you have the skill to copy from and from any part of the backup incremental history ... without having to do a full backup.

really doesn't matter how, so long media is reliable and you actually make a backup.

that being said, really don't like utilites that mirror entire drives. unless you have muliples discs to make separate backups.

when you get hosed by a utility making a backup and/or hard drive fails. You have hosed your last backup in the process. Leaving you with nothing.

ask me how I know /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif

paranoid DBA's make multiple backups on different media.

I make CR-W's for critical files, then backup manually separate folder to an external harddrive. Then I turn off power to external drive. This protects you data in case you pick up a particular nasty virus.

I always make separate copies of updated files. marking new folder with current date. then I will blow away files older than say 9months. with lots of good backups inbetween.

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cy said:
I make CR-W's for critical files, .


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I then copy the files from the CD back to a temporary folder to make sure the CD is readable. I store some of the CDs offsite.

I am trying a trial version of a program called Argentum Backup. It is fairly cheap at $25 and recommended by PC World.

The off site part is real important. Drop off a CD at your mom's when you visit.

Daniel

I buy an extra USB external hard drive and periodically copy the directories that contain my data over to that hard drive. Sometimes I'll have two external hard drives and create two copies, or one across the local network to another computer's hard drive.

This works very well and doesn't involve special software.

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Luff said:


While I use Ghost for bit-for-bit forensic duplication at work,

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Be careful using Ghost for forensic images. It changes a couple of bits of data in it's image. I use either safeback, encase, FTK imager or SPADA 3's DD function for my forensic images.

[ QUOTE ]
Luff said:
I believe Acronis True Image 8 is the best value on the market. I use it for incremental backups to second, internal hard drives, but it can back up to it's own hidden partition or any directory or logical drive on your system.

While I use Ghost for bit-for-bit forensic duplication at work, I much prefer the speed, simplicity and flexibility True Image offers for my personal machines and small business networks. It's MUCH faster than Ghost and allows bare-metal restores from a recovery boot disk. There are many inexpensive and expensive backup options available on the market and I've used most. True Image supports more file formats. It works over a network, and a wide variety of external drives. For home or small business, tis the best there is.

I especially like True Image's ability to run backups in the background. Set the schedule and forget about it until you need to do a restore.

A little known tool in True Image is it's 'explorer' function. While True Image backs up everything on the specified logical drive, afterward you can mount a backup image (or any one of the previous incremental images) as a hard drive on your local machine. That means you can selectively copy out files and directories ... virtually any part of your hard disk you have the skill to copy from and from any part of the backup incremental history ... without having to do a full backup.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ghost v9 has the exact same features now since it is basically an enhanced version of Partition Magic. I've got mine doing a full backup each night, plus hourly incremental updates during the day. No human intervention required. This version also allows you to load the backup images and copy files from the backup without having to restore it to a drive.

another reason why I don't like utilities that mirror drives.

if your hard drive getting ready to fail. copying an extire drive can trip it over the edge. due to extreme load intensive nature of copying an entire drive.

this could happen at any time of course, but don't like possiblity of wiping out your good copy of data. trying to update.

always better to make independant backups that can be verified before blowing away old backup data.

take care which brand of CDR-W blanks you use. some will self-destruct in matter of years.

i like ghost too, a old crusty version that works in DOS.
because when everything dies, DOS is where i am going to be anyways /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

mirroring error, mirroring Viruses, and mirroring corruption, never really did interest me
what good is TWO fricked up drives full of data? Ask microsoft /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif
course it works great when the drive (hardware) itself fails, as long as it didnt get mirrored corrupt before that.

so i prefer simple hand copy, and CDR. Manuel , course then DOING it, becomes most important.

every time i had any major data loss, it was when i had the MOST backups, and i THOUGHT i could get rid of one of them. . .