I recently added an external USB 200GB drive to my system. Now I’m looking for some decent backup software to use with it. Any dopers have recommendations on what to use/what to avoid?
I’m still running under Windows XP, and the computer itself is only a couple of months old.
I can’t see any reason not to use the built-in backup software in Windows XP.
I use SyncBack Freeware.
A second vote for Syncback. Awesome software, haven’t had a single problem since I configured it. I run 23 offsite backups nightly, and love this program to death!
I use EMC Retrospect.
Ok, so what is the reason for not using the built-in backup software?
Because it sucks?
It has very few features and limited hardware support. It’s more of a demo than a real program.
It’s not a demo. It’s written by the same fellas who wrote Backup Exec . I use Backup Exec at work and ntbackup at home. “It sucks” isn’t an argument; what features are you missing? What kind of hardware is unsupported?
Not debating, asking for enlightment.
It’s been years since I’ve used it. I remember having trouble with the limited selection of drivers, and their quality. The program had no support for networks. It was a stripped down version of their full featured product, similar to the “free” software that is often included with tape drives. There was no vendor support for the program. It didn’t support backup to CD, DVD or hard disk. It didn’t support compression.
I’ve used the real version of Backup Exec with much more success. In general, you get what you pay for.
I’m using SmartSync Pro, which I’ve been fairly happy with. One note of caution - they have difficulties with the new structure of the Vista user directory, which has become a morass of NTFS junction points which should not be traversed by backup programs. In fairness, they don’t claim to support Vista yet. Their quality seemed quite high on earlier systems, and I’d imagine they’ll have it ironed out when they offer an official Vista version.
(Some background on the issue: Svrops.com - Windows Vista Junction Points)
Much has happened since the nineties.
Talking USB and Windows, there shouldn’t be any problem with drivers.
But the OP had an USB drive plugged in; there’s no need for network support.
Except for the compression part, this doesn’t feel relevant.
But you wouldn’t recommend a Sun Fire X2100 M2 Server to someone in need of a calculator either, would you? - You would say: “Run: Calc”.
Anyhow, if the software you recommend really is better than the built in, don’t hesitate to tell me why, because I wouldn’t hesitate to switch myself.
I use a little utility called CopyTo Syncronizer. Excellent little utility…scans the folders on my HD that I want to keep backed up, compares them with the external drive, and copies any new or changed folders. You can also tell it to do a complete backup, a match (which will erase files on the external if you’ve deleted them on the computer), backup both ways, restore, etc… Lots of options, simple and cheap.
Oh, and the XP backup utility? IIRC, it’s still wedded to the idea that you are going to make a special “backup set” file which is to be “restored” using the backup program. These days, with sizes of removable media being what they are, I don’t bother with that. My backups are simply copies of the files / directories I want backed up, on a 20 gig laptop disk in a USB enclosure. I have two of them, so that I can periodically store one of them away from my house. Among other things, this means that if I screw up a file on my machine, I can grab it from the backup copy by simply copying it in the file explorer. It also means that I won’t even need the backup program to restore from a failure.
SmartSync allows you to remap directory structure on the target, and has filtering which I believe is missing from the XP builtin. That latter point is nice, for instance, for copying a source directory I have - by filtering out all subdirectories named “build”, “dist” or “javadoc” I wind up maintaining backup copies of source, not derivative stuff. It also has a mode for backing up to a zip file, which can be convenient.
Acronis is far and away the best hard disk backup software in my opinion:
The simplest and most effective file copy/sync software is a Micosoft freeware application called SyncToy:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx
Other free drive imaging software:
Thirded.
It’s a great general file backup utility.
Thanks - I’ll look into these.
I confess - I didn’t even realize that XP had built-in backup software…but after reading the posts, I checked “All Programs → Accessories → System Tools” and there it was. I might give it a try, or I might try one of the freeware programs.
I’m not really trying to perform any sort of sophisticated backup here - mostly concerned with not losing all the CDs I’ve ripped to iTunes for my iPod over the last several months. Don’t wanna have to do that again 
So even if I can just use the built-in backup tool to save the contents of my “My Documents” folder onto the backup drive, that would probably satisfy 95% of my backup needs.
BTW, just for grins I installed SyncBack Freeware to check out the Vista “users” directory thing. It fails, too, though the mode of failure is more tolerable. SyncBack also does not claim to support Vista yet.
Details - SyncBack reports “access denied” on all the damned junction points, while copying the rest of the structure, and ultimately reports that the backup failed. SmartSync winds up going into a tailspin following circular references. I believe all the junction points simply cross link to other portions of the “users” directory, so SyncBack actually gets all the real contents, except for the “in use” files.
My instant impression is that the two programs have similar capabilities. SmartSync’s UI is a bit more polished, and it is aimed more at the business user rather than the custom tweaker. SmartSync is lacking the ability to run custom scripts before and after backup (or I can’t find it), but has “out of box” support for things like versioning which SyncBack expects you to script. SyncBack’s free, SmartSync is cheap ($35, which gets you support).
Previous to Vista, I had selectively backed up only parts of the Windows directories anyway, to avoid too many in use files, and to avoid copying irrelevent junk. Whenever possible, I configure apps to store their data in someplace of my choosing rather than the Windows ghetto, too.
(To see all the “junction points” I’m talking about in Vista, turn off the “hide protected operating system” files that it warns you not to, and start traversing down through the users directory. You will find a raft of things that are marked as short cuts, but will give you “access denied” if you try to traverse them. Those are the junction points, which are a mechanism similar to a UNIX symbolic link. On UNIX, the term “symbolic link hell” would be applicable here. After the experiment, you should probably turn the “hide protected operating system files” bit back on.)
Thanks to the positive reviews here, I’m giving it a try. From what I can see, it doesn’t make bootable copies. I’m looking for for something cheap or free that will copy and restore my entire system, including botting and program. I don’t need any options. Did I miss something?
advTHANKSance
I use DriveImageXML, which is fully manual, for this function. Unlike some of the previously mentioned syncing backup programs it does not make incremental backups. But you can restore your complete system from a backed up copy. I periodically backup several computer system images to a pair of drives, one off site one on site. It is by no means the most elegant solution, but it is free.
Ideally, you’d keep your bootable system back up on the small side and back up data that change frequently such as documents or media that take up a lot of space separately using different strategies.
A Linux live CD called GPartedit can also be very useful for creating/resizing and setting boot flags to these types of partitions on backup drives.
Thanks, but their FAQ page says:
Some stuff about partiotions too. Just a wee bit too risky for me. I’m looking to have a bootable cd or bootable dvd, which will then copy itself onto the hard drive. I’ll keep looking and report back.