Windows 7: Recommendations Plz: Would like to run scheduled backups, min impact.

Hi, i currently occasionally backup mum and dad's PC with a simple robocopy batch file to an external HDD (/MIR). Unfortunately, this doesn't happen very often and i'd like to change strategy.

They are not heavy users, they don't update data often, but when they do it's usually a couple of hundred photos (HQ jpeg).

I've recently replaced their PC with one that runs Windows 7 and has two HDDs, "C" is ~160gb. The other (Backups) is ~200gb.

I'm after software that will run silently in the background and throttle it's behaviour, either during login/startup, or during use. Or, if no throttling: run when they log off or shut down (possibly my preferred option).



I've read around a bit, but reviews don't seem to focus on scheduling, and how it would work as far as user impact is concerned. And although i haven't read extensively, i haven't seen a mention of throttling so user impact is minimised.

I will continue to manually backup to an external HDD from time to time (pretty much whenever i visit).

Cheers.

Try macrium reflect free. You can also make a scheduled task for automatic backups.

The only download link i can find on their site is for trial software. Can you please provide a direct link? Though to be honest, when companies play the game of 'hide the freebie amongst all the trialware', i tend to think poorly of them/it.

Has anyone used Microsofts 'SyncToy'?

Download: SyncToy 2.1 - Microsoft Download Center - Download Details

oh, and i found the Macrium Free. It doesn't quite appear to be the right solution, it seems to be a full backup, rather than differential/incremental backup: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

EDIT: SyncToy is garbage

Another free product (for home use) that does allow for differential/incremental backup is AOMEI Data Backuper. From their website: "Based on a full backup, the software supports ... incremental or differential backups ... taking less time and saving storage space."

AOMEI's free data backup software for disk, partition, system and file backup & recovery for Windows Oss.

Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download
Highly recommended by most professionals at sevenforums

Maybe, but does it do incremental or differential backups? Not according to their chart. What is their 'cloning' feature? I expect that to be imaging, but that is also listed.

I'm beginning to think that a syncing program is more what they need. They don't have large storage to carry many full copies of backup sets, nor can they be relied upon to run it themselves. If it backs up their entire photo collection every day, it'll take them quite a while to get routine tasks done until the backup is complete.

Macrium may be more suitable for me to run my occasional backups to external HDD than for syncing onto their spare internal HDD.

To that end, i found this handy guide:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...ation_software

I'll look into Macrium for my ~Monthly backups. But then again, CloneZilla works bloody well and it's too easy. Well, too easy to make backups and restore. Not so easy to explore files, should that need arise.

Cloning is just an exact copy of disk/partition(s). Imaging is make backup of 1 or more partitions to 1 container file. It holds label,partition type, partition size, permissions and so on. And of course the files itself. Differential and Incremental backups aren't supported in macrium free version.

Macrium can run on a live system!! You can set the priority of the backup process (config item). It is possible live because it makes a snapshot of situation as it is the moment you start it. You can mount the image you made as a virtual drive and restore 1 or more files. On full restore it adjust the bootmenu to the new situation and adjusts the registry for correct drive lettering. Images don't contain pagefile, hibernation file and some other temp files. Images can be highly compressed.

Most of those things are impossible with clonezilla.


I advise you to use:

• Use macrium once a month to make backups. Keep 2 versions (last month, 2 month ago). So you can do disaster recovery
• Use synctool daily

Thanks for that extra information re process priority etc. I looked into it a little bit more and i'm leaning toward your suggestion. I agree CloneZilla doesn't have the features you point out (i realised last night that recovering a single file from a CloneZilla img is murder).

Another program that looks comparable to Macrium is Acronis.

For those interested, i found these pages to be useful:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compar...oning_software
Comparison of file synchronization software - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I think i'll mark this as solved. I just need to choose the right software now i have a plan and some suggestions. Cheers.