best software for data backups?

[ironbeagle]

for those who do data backups instead of full system backups, what software are you using, what's your setup & workflow like and what features are most important to you?

 

[dbwillis]

I use backupassist to my customers.
nightly backup of the important files to 64gb flash drives (12gb important data) which are stored in a fire proof safe (its an oil, propane customer)
Sunday backup of all the data to a laptop in another building
nightly backup of all the shares to E$ in the server

notification features are the most important
-64gb flash drives are to be used if the place burns down, or the huge propane tank explodes
-Sunday backup is just a secondary copy
-nightly backup to E$ in the server is in place in case they delete a file or picture, which isnt stored on the flash drive at night

 

[elavanis]

I use the free version of crashplan. Each computer backs up to a local computer for quick access of in the case of accidental deletion. That computer also backs up the nas. In addition to that each computer also backs up off site to my parents which is running crashplan for an off site backup. Backups are done on 5tb external drives. If the house burned down I could retrieve everything from the external drive or if I uploaded a lot of photos I can swap external drives instead of uploading gigs of data over a 1mb upload. Crash plan is configured to keep old version of files for 1 year. So far knock on wood I haven't had a data loss but I feel better about my data back up now. I lost photos of a trip to Maine and got serious about backups after that.

Online Data Backup - Offsite, Onsite, & Cloud - CrashPlan Backup Software

My only issue I've seen is originally only 1 computer could see the offsite at a time. When I built a vpn tunnel to my parents network that "fixed" the issue.

Forgot, important things.
Local copy
Offsite copy
Versioning
Cost

 

[FnordMan]

for those who do data backups instead of full system backups, what software are you using, what's your setup & workflow like and what features are most important to you?

No such thing as "best", every piece of software has it's advantages and disadvantages. Having said that, I run a paid version of Macrium Reflect, works great for me.