Windows 7: Windows 7 Backup

hey, i hope you can help me...
i switched to windows 7 directly from xp, so i skipped vista and am now for the first time equipped with a build-in backup utility.
which i am using regularly. i've got roundabout 250gb of data to be backed up, audio, video, pictures and books, most of which don't change much. the first backup session (on may 7th) to my external usb-harddrive took nearly 24h; pretty long, but i guessed for the first time ok. the next few backups were pretty fast, only around 20 mins, since i didn't change much of my data.
but: sice may 18th, every time i start backup it takes forever, and when i abort it and look into the details, it started a completely new backup. i do have no idea why this happened, but is there any way i can get it to just update the older backup files? i don't see the necessity to let my computer and my external harddrive run for multiple hours...

Some of these tutorials may help. Windows 7 has pretty good compression. I would just duplicate your files and then make an image once a month and you'll be fine.

It will say it needs a lot of room but will not use it. I think my 130 GB back up and made it 59GB as I recall.

Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup[2]=Backup%20Restore

thanks for the quick answer.
obviously i haven't made myself clear enough...
this is not a room problem at all, i've got a 1tb external drive, that should be enough for the moment. what annoyes me is that the backup utility doesn't update the existing data backup, but instead starts all over new again, copying all the files again. which takes literally days.

Hi there
consider using a commercial backup solution such as acronis true image. It doesn't cost a lot and can also do "Incremental" backups as well as full backups. This means that you just backup data changes since the last backup.

cheers
jimbo

Acronis True Image Home 2009 is pretty slick. Many customizable features. Highly recommended.

Initial complete system image backup of my ~110 gb Windows 7 installation to a 1.5 TB external USB drive took about 2 hours. Used about 87 gb on "normal" compression mode. Will be doing subsequent incremental backups on a weekly basis.

Acronis TIH also has a disk clone utility and I also make weekly or bi weekly clones of my primary laptop drive. Nothing easier than swapping in a recent clone if disaster strikes.

thanks for the suggestions...
but my main question remains: i thought windows 7 does do incremental backups, just like apple time machine does?
am i wrong here?

After looking over the web for this info I would say NO, that Windows 7 does not do incremental backups.

But as stated above by everyone else here I also use Acronis True Image as it's the best & fastest backup system I've ever used!
This is why everyone uses it!
I've been using Acronis now for the last 5 years & they have never failed me!
Best of all, is my average backup is only 7.6Gbs & this is a complete OS partition backup with all the crucial programs & files I need to put everything back to working order which btw takes all of 6 minutes!
Because the compression ratio is so good with Acronis you can afford to have multiple redundant backups of your system.
I have 3 at all times & do daily backups of my system which takes 5 minutes for a Complete backup.
Kicks butt on the Windows 7 backup system on speed, space & time.

Another vote for Acronis

It has saved my bacon many times. It is quick and simple to restore a backup from Acronis, and it works every time. I am running XP and Win 7 RC1 on two partitions and back up both with Acronis.
No worries.

If you do decide to go for the Acronis - watch out for the Disk Selector

http://www.sevenforums.com/software/...-director.html

If you have a Seagate or Maxtor drive, there is a version of ATI 11 available thru Seagate - see if you like it first.

DiscWizard | Seagate

I much prefer Paragon - they have a Drive Backup app. - superb and cheaper than Acronis. They also have Hard Disk Manager - the best partitioning tools available included with the imaging program - for about the same as Acronis.

Paragon Software - hard disk partitioning, drive backup, hard disk management, system performance optimizing

The free version Paragon do is very limited , tho. - you might try a trial version.

There is also Macrium Reflect - no partitiong tools included, pure imaging. It is the fastest and smallest ( about 25 mb) you can get.

There is a free version ( the free one images drives/partitions and allows scheduling and mounting to retrieve individual files).

The paid version does a whole lot more of course and is a bargain.

Free version available here:

Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download


Hope it helps