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StarsFan4Life
07-21-2008, 10:51 AM
Over the weekend I setup a main "media" home server and installed 2 x 500gb drives on it. Now, as of right now, I only have about 400gb used between the two, but downloads are on their way.

I also purchased a 1TB HD to be used as an external drive for backups. What I would like to do is schedule a weekly backup at 3:00am Monday morning to backup everything on these two drives (not C:).

I tried using Vista's backup utility and I "assume" it backed it up on the external as there is now a folder on there and is around 350mb (compressed?). However, I cannot open the file up to see the contents.

Needless to say, I would like some suggestions on free backup utlities that can be scheduled to run every so often. Thanks in advance!
DeaconFrost
07-21-2008, 10:54 AM
SyncToy is free, easy to configure, and I'm pretty sure it can be scheduled as well.
TrEpIdAtIoN
07-21-2008, 10:58 AM
I've used Syncback SE, they have a free version but the supported version is only 30 bucks. It works really well never had a problem with it at all, and does scheduling.
StarsFan4Life
07-21-2008, 11:24 AM
Is there a free version of Acronis?
Uncle
07-21-2008, 04:03 PM
I use Acronis and for $29.99 its a steal for all the time its saved me. Yes their are free versions, but some companies deserve my hard earned money because they make good products.
StarsFan4Life
07-21-2008, 05:44 PM
Can someone explain why Acronis is soo much better?
DeaconFrost
07-21-2008, 07:21 PM
It depends on what you want to use it for. If you want to image the entire drive, Acronis or Ghost would work best. If you want to maintain a backup of files and folders, and keep them backed up on a server or external drive, SyncToy is a better choice.
axan
07-21-2008, 07:49 PM
I agree with ^, Acronis is great but if you just want to do file level backups other software is better, you can try synctoy as others mentioned or give casper a try. I love acronis but you need the software to look at the backed up files or do any kind of restore, you can't just manually copy stuff over to other drive/medium. If you plan on doing full drive images then acronis is well worth the money.