Recommendations for backup and disc image software

Cerumen said:

Thanks, all. I'll give Macrium a try. I guess backing up is inherently complex, especially if you want to auto-delete old backups, rotate external backups, and all the challenges of boot disk.

My suspicion is that the Windows backup--at least on Win7Home--won't support some of the niceties that make some backup routines what they should be--set it and forget it, and with the logic to delete old cycles and recognize rotating externals.
Thanks, again.
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Eric,

We all have different backup needs. In my case, I basically want to just backup a snapshot of my system/bootable partition/drive. Data which contains my photos, video, etc are handled differently. They are just simple copy to another drive process. Re-creating my bootable partition in case of a crash or if I have to change HD is another matter.

What I wanted was to break away from DVD discs. I wanted to be able to boot from a flash disk or an SDHC card and restore my windows 7 installation with all the software and stuff I use, all as quickly and as little fuss as possible. Macrium was good enough for me to do that. I used the free version and basically I didn't even half to call tech support. It was easier to use and make it work, at least in my experience.

Good luck in your quest for a backup program.
--
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• Caterpillar

'Always in the process of changing, growing, and transforming.'

Cerumen said:

I guess backing up is inherently complex, especially if you want to auto-delete old backups, rotate external backups, and all the challenges of boot disk.

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Keep it simple. I name my backups just like my photo folders:

20120825

Purging manually based on date is nice and easy. I usually keep one or two old images and a two or three of the most recent.

Cerumen said:

My suspicion is that the Windows backup--at least on Win7Home--won't support some of the niceties that make some backup routines what they should be--set it and forget it, and with the logic to delete old cycles and recognize rotating externals.

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It's horrible. When I tried Windows backup, it deleted all but the last backup (including one I really wanted to keep). I was mightily upset and vowed never to use the darn thing again. And I haven't.

skyglider said:

skyglider wrote:

The Image For Windows backup was faster than the Win7 backup. I have not done a restore yet, but have complete faith in Terabyte's software.

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I just did my first restore to my 64GB SSD from an Image For Windows backup. The restore worked perfectly as expected.

The restore took 7 minutes and 2 seconds!

Here's the actual breakdown of the times:

• Validate image can be restored on SSD: 3 min, 20 sec.
• Restore image on SSD .......................: 7 min, 2 sec.
• Validate restore byte-for-byte .............: 5 min, 25 sec.

So the total restore process took 15 minutes, 47 seconds.
Wow, compare that to Win7's restore to the same SSD that took 10.5 hours !!!

After the restore, I checked the partition alignment on the SSD and proper alignment was retained. Good Stuff! So now I can personally verify that "Image for Windows" will restore a backup perfectly to a SSD with proper alignment. BTW, the backup is on a 7200 rpm HDD in an external BlacX docking station connected via eSATA.

Note to Cerumen: ... I learned that Terabyte's "Bootit Bare Metal" (a multi boot and/or partition manager) comes with (Image for DOS) for free. "Image for DOS" is a backup software similar to "Image for Windows". So for what you would pay for a backup only software, you could get multi-boot, partition manager and backup software for less $$$. Check the terabyteunlimited.com website for more info.

Sky

I use and recommend Handy Backup 7, it's a good image backup software.
http://handybackup.net

I have never ever backed up my OS in 12v years on a PC. I prefer to start from FRESH if my HD gos Belly Up.

I do back up my Photos and Docs etc, by using "Karens Replicator" Great program that is easy to use.
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MrScary (DennisR)
Swansea, Wales. UK
http://russ4tography.com/
http://copernob.jalbum.net/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/scarecrowdr

--I have Acronis True Image Home 2011 and have had no reason to update. I do a full backup of my Windows Home Premium 7 system each month and a file (photos, docs and other bits) twice monthly. I keep 3 months available. Haven't had to do a BU in 10 years so must be lucky.

I have checked on the 'file' BUs and they are all there in good order. I am not very concerned about the full backups but they seem ok. No SSD and don't intend to go there. I also backup to a WD USB drive that does constant BUs, files only.
Don V. Armitage

I know this is an old thread but makes since to just see if anyone has new insights on their backup systems. I finally gave up on Acronis True Image 2012. The main reason was for the buggy maintenance system that was supposed to keep only the desired number of backups and remove the older backups. Never worked like it was supposed to.

Now instead of fixing the bugs they send me a message that Acronis True Image 2013 was now available for purchase. I have dumped it and switched over to Win7 pro backup system. I'm going to build a new system anyway maybe I'll find a backup system designed to back up to NAS or SAN that knows how to maintain and manage the backup storage system.
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Kevin

kcbeatty said:

I know this is an old thread but makes since to just see if anyone has new insights on their backup systems. I finally gave up on Acronis True Image 2012. The main reason was for the buggy maintenance system that was supposed to keep only the desired number of backups and remove the older backups. Never worked like it was supposed to.

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kcbeatty said:

Kevin

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This is exactly the problem I have encountered. Obviously a software fault. Will dump Acronic and find some other for my Win 7 Home Premium setup.

Macrium reflect.

None of the others work as well IMHO.

There can be an issue with the latest motherboards and Sata drivers when trying to boot from the standard Linux boot disk which is overcome by using the optional WinPE boot disk.

All of the other backup and recovery programs I tried also had the same issue with the latest hardware, but without an easy solution.

I had been asking for help on the Acronis forum:-

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/35365#comment-110986

I saw your post Kevin so added to the Acronis forum that I would dump True Image and look elsewhere.

Wrong move! - the Acronis management removed my that post "because Acronis forum terms of use was violated" I have told them I that I posted a fact; I will dump True Image. I have also told them I object to censorship a of a fact.

Still it is their site; but it will not be more of my money.

soloryb said:

Solorib said:

I tried the Win 7 backup (available on Ultimate and Pro) and although I was able to create a disk image, I couldn't burn a system repair disk...

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I have not had this problem on W7 Pro. I burned the DVD repair disk fine, and had to use it last night to do a complete restore as I got a weird SW problem that stopped my computer from even loading Windows. I was a bit nervous about wiping out my C: drive but the restore went fine. Thankfully I am on a 24-hr backup cycle so not much was lost.

soloryb said:

Also, Win 7's backups have another big disadvantage, the backups are not transparent - at least I know of no way to open and look at files and folders.

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You right-click on the original file or folder itself, choose Previous Versions, and it shows you all the versions that exist in the backup database. You can choose any to restore.

Athegn said:

Athegn wrote:

I had been asking for help on the Acronis forum:-

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/35365#comment-110986


I saw your post Kevin so added to the Acronis forum that I would dump True Image and look elsewhere.

Wrong move! - the Acronis management removed my that post "because Acronis forum terms of use was violated" I have told them I that I posted a fact; I will dump True Image. I have also told them I object to censorship a of a fact.

Still it is their site; but it will not be more of my money.

Click to expand...

I'm sorry that I missed your reply post. That's not right for Aconis to treat you that way. Not cool man. I recently had a big issue with their True Image 2012. I bought a new PC a couple of weeks ago. I installed the Acronis True Image 2012 and created an image backup. After that I brought the program up and deleted the backup schedules that the program created all on it's own. All I wanted was an image in case something happened during the software installs. The Acronis image was on an external drive.

I proceeded to install more software. I turned on Windows backup and created an image of my boot SSD to one of my internal HDD. I felt pretty good that I had 2 independent images plus Windows backup protecting my new system. All was well for a little while.

While installing Metal Of Honor Warfighter it recommended me to update my video driver. I have a Dell Radeon 7770 video card with 2gb of ram. So I went to catalyst and downloaded the newest control center. Wrong move, Dell has made changes and this board is not catalyst compatible. So on the next boot I select the boot menu and chose to revert the system to the last known good version. But as soon as the Windows restore screen loaded the Acronis menu popped up. So I terminated the Acronis program and proceeded to attempt the Windows restore. Acronis menu came back up again. Then it became apparent that the Acronis software had hijacked the windows backup system. I was not too happy about this but decided to allow the Acronis system to restore the image it had made earlier. All went well and I was back up soon to a stable OS.

I immediately uninstalled the Acronis software and made another Windows image backup. I have the Macrium Reflect installed to do my image backups. I won't load the Acronis software again. Their solution for the Win 8 compatibility problem was to come out with a new version of their software and charge all their customers for an upgrade. Not me.

Since this thread got updated, and I'm the OP, figured I'd provide an update. In the last month I've run a trial of Macrium Reflect, and just bought a license for it two days ago.

It does everything I want. The instructions are good, and it seems fast and not too resource-heavy. I'm very happy with the purchase, and would recommend it to others.

Thanks to all for your input.