Win7 backup software

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sed8em

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I need a program that will reliably and automatically back up my XPS 15 laptop to an external hard drive.
I saw the Acronis program on sale at Newegg for $15, seems like a good deal but there are a lot of negative comments about it on here and on Newegg's reviews.
I also saw Ghost 15.0, but $50-$60 seems kinda steep.
I basically want to select a folder (primarily the 'homework' folder in My Documents) and have it backed up every day or so (or any interval I choose).

Is Acronis my best choice for backup software at $15?
 
Acronis is primary for creating a backup image of your entire system. Windows 7 has a built in backup tool that does this and it works very well - sometimes even better than Acronis.

If you just want to backup a folder I recommend the freeware version of Syncback . Instead of creating a single backup image file, it just copies the files over to your backup drive. The benefit of this is this is that you can access the files on your backup device without needing any special software.

There are many other free tools that do this.

Microsoft has the freeware synctoy

Some online backup solutions also provide you with a free online backup and the ability to sync folders on your computer and between different computers. I use SpiderOak and like it a lot.
 
Do you have another machine?? If so use Windows Live Sync... it's free and will sync whatever folder you tell it to another computer. Works sweet....

I have my documents, music, pictures ALL synced to my wifes computer. Works awesome.(Desktop with a 1GB drive just for my backups)

P.S. It also gives you 5GB of free online space. I have My Documents "in the cloud" as well...
 
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The bad review of Acronis 2011 are deserved. If you can get the 2010 it is at least useable at this point. I never was able to get Ghost 15 to work for me either though it was probably some kind of conflict. Definitely trial anything before you buy. I am personally using O&O DiskImage at this point. The incrementals take longer than a full backup so I always just run a full one but it has never failed me. Grab some trials of anything that looks interesting and test them out on your own machine.
 
Been using Windows 7 built in backup program to do a scheduled weekly backup onto external USB drive for 6 months or more. Works great and you can customize what to backup if you want. I don't see a need to spend money on something like this when the built in program works fine.
 
Awesome, thanks for all the replies!
When my XPS gets back to me I'll try the Win7 utility first and see if that works for me.
Thankfully I keep my crucial homework backed up to Dropbox so I can access it from school computers.
Everything else I incrementally manually back up (music, pictures, etc) so it was all backed up manually to an external HD.
 
sprtnbsblplya said:
Awesome, thanks for all the replies!
When my XPS gets back to me I'll try the Win7 utility first and see if that works for me.
Thankfully I keep my crucial homework backed up to Dropbox so I can access it from school computers.
Everything else I incrementally manually back up (music, pictures, etc) so it was all backed up manually to an external HD.
Click to expand...

Hi, sprtnbsblplya,

You may find the Windows 7 Backup and Restore FAQs helpful, as well as, the Win7 ABCs - Great list of Windows 7 tutorials by MVP Shawn Brink!. Check out the entry "How to Create a System Image Backup in Windows 7" and other related tutorials.

Hope this helps.

Chuklr
 
Thanks Chuklr, that is helpful. Now if Dell would just hurry up and get my quad i7 back to me so I can stop using this 5 year old Pentium M Latitude d610.
 
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