Good + Free backup software?

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TheSmJ

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I have a Windows 7 Ultimate system I would like to backup every day to an old laptop with an external HDD. I've tried using Windows' built in Backup and Restore software, but it insists on backing up both my 120 GB SSD AND my 1.5 TB storage drive if I want it to make an image. In the end this takes it 10+ hours to complete a backup from start to finish, which is idiotic.

So what other good backup solutions are there. I'd like one that could make a full image of a HDD (for any drive I specify, not the "all or nothing" bullshit Windows demands) and allow me to pull out individual files if need be. Of course a free option would be ideal, but I'd be willing to spend ~$20 on something if its really worthwhile.

In the past I used Acronis TrueImage Home which was fine, but that was quite a few years ago and I imagine there are a lot of other options out there these days.
 
If you just want an image of the drive which you can restore later, I use clonezilla for that exact purpose.

You have to download it, burn it to a CD, restart the computer to boot from the CD and then follow the instructions to create an image of the drive and you're done.

Obviously the download and burn part only needs to be done the first time :p Once you've done it a couple of times it should only take you a minute to set up the clone then for 100GB it probably takes, I dunno, maybe 20 minutes, I haven't bothered timing it, I usually just walk away and come back later.
 
Win7's Backup & Restore can backup just your system drive, I just checked. Other freeware you may want to look at:

For image backup:
Macrium Reflect

For file backup:
Cobian Backup
FreeFileSync
 
TheSmJ said:
Yes, you can select individual files, or even the whole drive. But its not the same as an image.
Click to expand...

There is also an option for a system image; It just makes a .vhd. I use it to image all of my machines once a month, as well as backup specific files/folders nightly. Set it and forget it.
 
TheSmJ said:
Yes, you can select individual files, or even the whole drive. But its not the same as an image.
Click to expand...

Either you need to read up what system image means or you need to put on your reading glasses.

In top left hand corner, click 'create a system image', then read the description in the next window.
 
If you have a Western Digital or Seagate drive, you can get Acronis for free on their respective sites. I've been using it for a couple of years now without any issue.
 
preiius said:
Either you need to read up what system image means or you need to put on your reading glasses.

In top left hand corner, click 'create a system image', then read the description in the next window.
Click to expand...


Yeah buddy... it creates an image of any/all drives that have what it considers to be system data. In my case thats both the system and storage drives.

@SicKlown42012
I do have a Seagate drive. I'll check out the free copy of Acronis. Thanks!
 
Do you have your storage drive marked as system on purpose, like using it for pagefile or something? If not, did you install windows with both drives hooked up? That can sometimes lead to the issue of having one of the little hidden system partitions on your 'storage' drives by mistake.
 
I was looking for a decent backup software to mirror my music collection, photos and other various files. I don't need a full system mirror and I needed access to the files since I backup to an external, then use that to transfer large items to my laptop. I tried a few programs but I wasn't impressed with any of them.

In another thread I was recommended Free File Sync and I am totally blown away. It literally took 90 seconds to create my custom backup profile which is leaps and bounds faster than any other program I tired. It was so amazingly simple in the way the GUI is laid out I can't believe nobody else thought of it. The small but obvious icons to represent actions the program will take are intuitive even for a non-technical person. The speed at which it was able to compare and then sync the two locations I identified was LIGHT YEARS faster than some other programs (1+ hour to compare, another 30 min to copy even a few files).

EDIT - Just created a second profile to backup across the network, the comparing of 100GB of music took only a few mins. Amazing.

I'm not sure how Free File Sync would perform as a full system drive backup option, but for everything else I highly recommend it.
 
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jthomas said:
Do you have your storage drive marked as system on purpose, like using it for pagefile or something? If not, did you install windows with both drives hooked up? That can sometimes lead to the issue of having one of the little hidden system partitions on your 'storage' drives by mistake.
Click to expand...

I have some of the libraries, such as Downloads, linked to the storage HDD. I also have Steam games on the storage drive linked from the system drive (a 120 GB SSD). When I first installed Windows, it only wanted to back up the system drive. Once I made the changes I needed to make, it wanted to include the storage drive in the image.

Seagate DiskWizard is nice, but since backups cannot be scheduled it isn't very useful to me.
 
Crashplan is pretty great. It's free to backup to your own servers. Supports excellent encryption and the best deduplication engine I've ever seen. When you turn deduplication to max the developers said crashplan will NEVER re-send the same bits again. This is super useful for offsite backup and saving bandwidth/time.

If you pay a bit you can also get unlimited cloud storage from them. I currently have ~7TB backed up in their cloud for a mere $2.92 per month.
 
SirMaster said:
Crashplan is pretty great. It's free to backup to your own servers. Supports excellent encryption and the best deduplication engine I've ever seen. When you turn deduplication to max the developers said crashplan will NEVER re-send the same bits again. This is super useful for offsite backup and saving bandwidth/time.

If you pay a bit you can also get unlimited cloud storage from them. I currently have ~7TB backed up in their cloud for a mere $2.92 per month.
Click to expand...

I've been thinking about getting a crashplan account. Did you do the hard drive transfer option initially, or just upload all 7TB?
 
rufio said:
I've been thinking about getting a crashplan account. Did you do the hard drive transfer option initially, or just upload all 7TB?
Click to expand...

I uploaded it all myself.

I have 5mbit upload and unlimited bandwidth and it took about 4 months with some compression. Honestly the time flew by. I just installed it on my server and let it run completely by itself. Things seem to go fast when you ignore them. Keeping up is easy. I can upload about 50GB per day with 5mbit.

I paid for 4 years, so 4 months to get my initial backup set wasn't bad at all. My server does run a redundant array but it feels great having it all backed up offsite now too.

It's also protected against changes or deletes as crashplan keeps unlimited versions and never deletes old versions or deleted local files if you tell them not to.
 
SirMaster said:
I uploaded it all myself.

I have 5mbit upload and unlimited bandwidth and it took about 4 months with some compression. Honestly the time flew by. I just installed it on my server and let it run completely by itself. Things seem to go fast when you ignore them. Keeping up is easy. I can upload about 50GB per day with 5mbit.

I paid for 4 years, so 4 months to get my initial backup set wasn't bad at all. My server does run a redundant array but it feels great having it all backed up offsite now too.

It's also protected against changes or deletes as crashplan keeps unlimited versions and never deletes old versions or deleted local files if you tell them not to.
Click to expand...

Thanks, that pretty much settles getting it. Cox is going to shit a brick when they see my next month's upload bandwidth.
 
rufio said:
Thanks, that pretty much settles getting it. Cox is going to shit a brick when they see my next month's upload bandwidth.
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Haha I'm on Time Warner and used about 1.7TB in upload bandwidth per month for 4 straight months. Never heard any complaint from Time Warner or anything and I did that 6 months ago so I guess they didn't care or anything.

I hope you don't have any troubles as well.

What's also great about crashplan is you have nothing to lose. Go for the 4 year plan because you can cancel at any time and they refund you what time you didn't use. So you could cancel in 6 months to a year or whatever.

Though you can also take advantage of crashplans 30 day trial and see how things go for a month and then add on your 4 year key to continue the service.
 
SicKlown42012 said:
If you have a Western Digital or Seagate drive, you can get Acronis for free on their respective sites. I've been using it for a couple of years now without any issue.
Click to expand...

I'll have to give that a try, thanks.

Windows backup is very elementary.
 
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