Backup Software

[trickynick]

Hi Folks,

I'm looking fomr some backup software, free if at all possible, to back up my HDD to another HDD that's inside the case. I'm tired of the Windows 7 built in one, it's using more disk space on the backup drive than the one it's backing up.

Features I am looking for:
Be able to do a monthly full backup (first Sunday of the month)
Do 3 incremental backups every week. (On Sundays, except for the first one)

Both of my HDD are 500gb in size (yes, I know they are small).

Any suggestions?

 

[nikorr]

Clonezilla @ http://clonezilla.org/

You may choose to schedule back-ups regularly, or choose to do it on your own.

 

[nikorr]

Also,
EaseUS Todo Backup Free

One-click to backup system to easily full back up your system security.
One-click to restore system to dissimilar hardware for hardware replacement.
WinPE and Linux based bootable disk for easy backup & recovery.
Comprehensive backup types - full, differential and incremental backup.
Backup network data with scheduler, including network shared file on NAS and Windows.

 

[Rusting In Peace]

Have you consider just using both drives in RAID 1? Given that both drives are in the same machine it makes more sense to me just to have the drives mirrored.

For incremental backups I'd suggest using something that is based on Rsync because it's incredibly efficient at doing differentials between files / folders. When doing a backup you really just want to update what's changed rather than the entire lot.

 

[Ijack]

RAID 1 isn't a substitute for backups. They perform different functions and address different problems.

I find Genie Timeline (free version available) very good for continuous incremental backups. It's somewhat akin to OS X's Time Machine.

 

[Rusting In Peace]

Whilst you are right ijack, given the way TrickyNick is doing this backup I see little difference between backing up and mirroring the drive since:

1) The drives are in the same machine
2) 3 backups per week is pretty frequent if you ask me. Every second day isn't far away from daily which isn't far away from having the exact same content on the drives on a file write.

Can you elaborate why you think RAID 1 would be a bad idea for backup given TrickyNick's situation?

 

[Ijack]

The difference is that the OP might want to retrieve a file that he has inadvertently deleted. Full and incremental backups, as the OP suggests, allow him to recover a deleted file (with different granularity as the time since it was deleted gets longer). RAID 1 provides no protection against this eventuality.

Having managed backup systems for a network of about 1,000 clients, my experience is that about 90% (or more) of the time backups are required to correct user error rather than hardware failure.

RAID 1 is great at protecting against hardware failure (though I prefer RAID 5, if possible, as it makes better use of disk space).

 

[trickynick]

Apparently I made a typo when I made my first post, I didn't mean 3 per week, I meant once per week, and given 4 weeks in a given month, that's 4 total backups for that month.

I haven't looked at the all the suggestions yet, but I will look into them all and then pick best answer then.

 

[trickynick]

Best answer selected by TrickyNick.

 

[nikorr]

Thanks for the vote TrickyNick : )

 

[nikorr]

This topic has been closed by Nikorr.