Autobackup software recommendations?

H

Headbust

[H]ard|Gawd
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Oct 10, 2003
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Just got a 1TB MyBook finally ($75 at staples with coupon!)

it came with some autobackup software but it is only a trial, its called Memeo, just wondering what you guys use if any for folders you want backed up automatically.

If i am not mistaken the way these work is that if you add a file to "folder 1" when the scheduled backup takes place it will take any new files you placed in "folder 1" and put them in the same backup "folder 1" on the MyBook correct?

thanks
 
im looking for a good free or cheap autobackup software too. something i can just set to clone a folder or three and have it auto-synchronize every night or couple hours...
 
I like IdleBackup. Runs in the background, backing up specified files and directories to a location of your choice when the PC is inactive.
 
As far as paid software, I personally love Syncback SE. There's also a free version of Syncback but I'm not sure which features are limited.
 
Comodo Backup is a pretty good workstation backup program
From the people that made the good software firewall
http://backup.comodo.com/

I used to have people use Cobian years ago..but found this recently...I like it better.
 
I use cobian for local backups and mozy for offsite backups

EDIT: checking out comodo now tho
 
I also use Cobian.
It does not use a proprietary format.
It is free. Offers, full, incremental as well as differential backups.
It is very flexible.

I checked out Comodo. These are the limitat6ions I noticed.
It is limited to files smaller than 2GB.
It does not offer a differential backup.
The schedule options are quite limited. There is no weekly or yearly or every 2 weeks .....
No option to specify a before or after task.
 
MrF said:
I also use Cobian.
It does not use a proprietary format.
It is free. Offers, full, incremental as well as differential backups.
It is very flexible.

I checked out Comodo. These are the limitat6ions I noticed.
It is limited to files smaller than 2GB.
It does not offer a differential backup.
The schedule options are quite limited. There is no weekly or yearly or every 2 weeks .....
No option to specify a before or after task.
Click to expand...

yeah, i noticed that as well. already uninstalled comodo
 
MrF said:
I checked out Comodo. These are the limitat6ions I noticed.
It is limited to files smaller than 2GB.
It does not offer a differential backup.
The schedule options are quite limited. There is no weekly or yearly or every 2 weeks .....
No option to specify a before or after task.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but non issues for most desktop setups my clients have.
2 gig files...rare for most people.
I never ever do differential backup. always full . Ever have to restore a server some sucker setup differential backups on? Sucks.
Usually do 5x weekday backups, M-F

Cobian..biggest thing I hated was it won't overwrite previous backups..so when media filled up, had to have users manually prune them. Dunno if he finally added that feature in recent versions.
 
If you want every backup to overwrite the previous one, isn't it really a sync program that you want?
 
http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html#freeware

I use Synback Free. You can decide what folder to backup/sync and multiple different settings for each profile. You have a LOT of control of how things are backed up.

You can set it in "Backup" mode where it will just copy everything from one location to another location, your external drive in this case. You can also set it to "Sync" mode. So if you delete files from the main folder, it will delete files from the backup folder too. That way you don't have a bunch of outdated stuff in your back up "My Documents" folder or something. And of course you can set it to back up your files automatically on a schedule of your choosing.

It runs great on Vista 64bit and Windows 7 64bit as well.
 
I've bought couple sony laptop - both are same GB's and i'm using Window Vista's backup utlity - 1st comp made 3 DVD's and 2nd comp made 5 DVD's - i cant figure out why 3 and 5 DVD's i expect both should be on the same amount of DVD's....

I cant even restore after restart system by Pressing F8 select "Repair computer" follow instruction to system restore - none of the works!!! i find that freaking annoyed!

So i cant trust Vista's backup utlity - although i love Norton ghost v11 - i havent tried backup Vista - dont know if that will works either!
 
This is a real interesting thread by the way. I always thought windows users just used SyncToy, but now it seems that only a small number do.

This summer I will try some suggestions here as I am slacking in my back ups. Have made a back up in over 6 months now!
 
ZzBloopzZ said:
This is a real interesting thread by the way. I always thought windows users just used SyncToy, but now it seems that only a small number do.

This summer I will try some suggestions here as I am slacking in my back ups. Have made a back up in over 6 months now!
Click to expand...

You're a crazy man!!!!!
 
This is my take (goods and bads) of Cobian.
The bads are serious. However, I have not found an alternative that is overall better for me.


- It does not use a proprietary format. The default format is zip. If some day, you switch to a different backup, you can uninstall Cobian and still can access your backups. So, you are not stuck.
- It is very flexible.
- It is free.
- It is very simple to install. I have been using it on XP, Vista (32-bit and 64) and now Windows 7 (64)

- It uses the file archive attribute to determine if a file has changed since the previous backup.
That is how it handles differential or incremental backups. This limits you to either differential or incremental. You cannot perform both on the same data.
- It does not offer a restore function. So, you will have to manually restore your files.
 
There's a program that I've used before that I really like. It's called "Unison". It's designed to make backups even when the two objects to be synchronized change.

So, for example: I type notes.odt on Monday at 12:12AM on drive 1, and then later on at 5:43PM that day I type more on notes.odt on drive 2. At 8:07PM I can run Unison and it sees that the two files have changed and it asks me what I want to do. If I hadn't of written to both it would have just made copies of the most recently edited file.

Your alternative is rsync---I haven't used it, but I know it doesn't have as many features as Unison.
 
Headbust said:
If i am not mistaken the way these work is that if you add a file to "folder 1" when the scheduled backup takes place it will take any new files you placed in "folder 1" and put them in the same backup "folder 1" on the MyBook correct?
Click to expand...

In general, there is a difference between Sync and Backup.

If you by mistake edit a file, Sync will replicate the edit.
If you find out about the mistake after Sync, you will not be able to get the original file back. The same as RAID 1.

Backup let's you go back in time and recover your files from any point in time. Of course, this is limited by how long you keep your backups before you retire them.
Using incremental backups let's you reduce the required space and time for backups.

So, it depends what you want.
 
I need one of these---

And, how did you get that price on the 1tb? Nice.


Oh, and about the drive, is that the portable one? Why didn't you get that one?

Seems smaller would be better...for a few dollars more

Al
 
leezard said:
Just saw this one on slickdeals. Tons of features and free, I'm testing it out now

Feature list
Click to expand...

It seems to have a limited set of backup types.
I cannot even set up a simple incremental backup without deleting the previous backups!
Either I am misunderstanding the settings, or this is a very basic backup.
 
MrF said:
It seems to have a limited set of backup types.
I cannot even set up a simple incremental backup without deleting the previous backups!
Either I am misunderstanding the settings, or this is a very basic backup.
Click to expand...

Only way to do that is Choose Stack backups, then set the number of copies you want to keep.


20090518-1d0-77kb.jpg
 
But then how do you set it to be full or incremental or differential?
 
i want to add some more reference to this thread

after reading suggestions here and trying a few programs, it looks like what officer921 noted is best. synback free is easy to use, simple, and lightweight. i like how you can set it to verify everything, and also force the dates to change on the files across the network. a problem i always seemed to have in the past was the synced files still appeared as old files, so it always wanted to do a full backup. so this is hopeful.

my wireless network sucks though. 86GB to sync up, so i deleted my carpc music folder and hit 'go' last night to get a fresh start going. out of ~15k mp3's it still has over 8k files left this morning. but i guess 40GB over a g network isnt that bad for one night.
 
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