Which is the best free backup program?

[Cindy]

I use Paragon Drive Backup 9.0 works great in Windows 7 RC1

 

[Robert Cartman]

x

Paragon Drive Backup in not free and the demo does nothing for free
I found only a 30day trial edition of Macrium Reflect for free
The GFI Easy-to-use... what sup3rsprt and Barman58 posted is working great for me!
SyncBack is my favourite now! (posted by usasma)
I didn't have enogh time to try the others.
Thank you all for the replys!

 

[Charles Kane]

I found only a 30day trial edition of Macrium Reflect for free

Macrium Reflect Free edition is Here

(Google is a wonderful thing)

 

[Robert Cartman]

Macrium Reflect Free edition is Here

(Google is a wonderful thing)

sorry on an other page i saw it as 30day-trial, must be my fault.
Thank you!

 

[Barman58]

One thing I will mention with regards to the Paragon software range.
The company often provide different "offers" in different regions of the world.

Here in the UK we have been particularly well served with fully operational versions of their full products available as magazine giveaways for personal use.

I have used the full suite program for a few years, over several revisions - always available here free of charge, and fully operational

They normally do however provide free "express" versions of software which are available on their site although not always well advertised

For our Admin Brink (as a belated birthday present ) or any other Microsoft MVP's reading this - this page may be of interest ...

PARAGON Software Group - Special offer for MVPs

 

[Muad Dib]

Macrium Reflect Free edition is Here

(Google is a wonderful thing)

I suggested to my brother that he try Macrium Reflect Free. He checked into it and reported that the free version does NOT allow creation of an emergency boot disk in Vista. What is the "Linux Boot CD"?

Did not want to debate with home, just glad he is getting some backup software.

So he bought a copy of Acronis.

 

[SIW2]

Hi,

I think your brother in law may have misunderstood.

The Linux based recovery cd is the one you use for Vista/ 7 /XP.

The free version also allows you to create a Bartpe disc ( for XP users if they prefer) .

The Acronis boot disc will also be linux based, of course - and the Paragon boot cd is Linux/Dos.

What may have confused him is that ( uniquely ) the Paid version of Macrium also provides a PE2 bootdisc - Vista users can use that if they prefer.

 

[pparks1]

My backups generally are 2 types
1). With Windows 7 and Vista (business, ultimate and enterprise), I set the box up and get the drivers installed and then use the built-in backup tool to create a "system image". I have used this numerous times to restore a box and it works great

2). My data files I backup to a couple of external hard drives...one of which I keep out of the house/offsite. I just use robocopy (comes with Vista and Windows 7)with the /mirror switch to ensure that my portable drive is a replica of my hard drive. And with robocopy, it only backs up the files that have changed...so the backup times are extremely fast. If you want a GUI style interface, I would suggest Karen's File Replicator (Karen's Replicator)

I just find with my home machines that I don't need multiple point in time backups. So, most of the commercial backup apps don't offer benefits for me.

 

[Muad Dib]

Hi,

I think your brother in law may have misunderstood.

The Linux based recovery cd is the one you use for Vista/ 7 /XP.

The free version also allows you to create a Bartpe disc ( for XP users if they prefer) .

The Acronis boot disc will also be linux based, of course - and the Paragon boot cd is Linux/Dos.

What may have confused him is that ( uniquely ) the Paid version of Macrium also provides a PE2 bootdisc - Vista users can use that if they prefer.

I suspected as much but was far too happy to see him getting ANY kind of image backup to discourage his efforts and progress. His last system had a fatal HDD crash and he was totally unprepared. So it goes....

 

[pparks1]

I've gone back and tried a few of these other applications and have experienced some problems with them. Keep in mind, my setup is a triple boot with Windows XP 32-bit, Windows 7-64bit, and Ubuntu 9.04 (32-bit on EXT4).

#1). Macrium Reflect Free: Looks great, backs up fast, very good compression. Booting from Linux based rescue disk and I have no keyboard...although mouse works (both are USB). So, when I get to screen to select partitions to restore, I cannot click the shift key to click on multiples. I tried compatibility mode for the rescue disk, I checked Legacy USB in BIOS and made sure that PNP for the OS was disabled in BIOS.

#2). I tried Paragon Drive Backup Express 9.0 Free. Backup was pretty quick, interface was intuitive. Tried Rescue disk on USB media as well as CD ROM. While I got into recscue mode ok, it could NOT find my internal SATA hard drive to select as the destination. The only option shown as a destination was my portable USB drive that I was using as the source.

#3) I tried EaseUS ToDO Backup. It installed fine, but when I selected the entire drive to image and it started the process...it got through the check on the first two partitions and then hung the Windows 7 box.

I'm trying to backup a machine with an Asus P5QL-Pro mobo, a standard single SATA disk in IDE mode. Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB. It's running Windows XP 32-bit, Windows 7 64-bit and Ubuntu 9.04 32-bit as a triple boot.

I'd like to get an image of all 3 onto an external USB drive so that I could easily restore this triple boot in the event of a complete disaster. It doesn't seem that the Windows provided system image will do anything but my C and D drive...which are my Windows partitions.

 

[SIW2]

Hi pp,

That's really bad luck.

Not sure why, because I don't have a fancy pc - but I never had a problem with any kind of boot disc.

I am using a USB mouse, but just a standard ps2 keyboard.

Did you try the Todo ? - best to try the boot disc first -in case you have the same problem.

You could try the Seagate AT11 freebie - that has quite a big boot disc - probabaly more drivers.

http://www.seagate.com/support/discwizard/DiscWizardSetup.en.exe

It's abig d/l just to check if the boot disc works - but I guess it's the only way.

You are supposed to have at least one Seagate/Maxtor drive, or it will complain.

 

[pparks1]

SIW2,

Yeah, it is bad luck. I updated my earlier post and I just got done trying EaseUS todo and it completely hung.

I think some of these apps are having trouble with the fact that I used EXT4 for / in Ubuntu 9.04. Also, the fact that I have Ubuntu on the box at all is causing some of the apps to have trouble...unfortuantely so many things are designed and tested with just Windows in mind.

With regards to keyboard, my mobo has a PS2 adapter...but alas we have 0 PS2 keyboards at work...so I cannot try that. I can obviously boot into other linux distros and use my keyboard and mouse......so nothing out of the ordinary there.

Edit: I don't have a Seagate or Maxtor drive...so I don't think that the AT11 freebie is going to do the trick for me. My drives at home and at work are all Western Digitals at the moment. My bad luck just keeps continuing.

 

[TGSoldier]

I like robocopy

 

[pparks1]

I'll try to bring in a PS2 keyboard from home and give the restore another go with the Macrium Rescue application. It will be interesting to see if it chokes anyway with the fact that I have Ubuntu and EXT4 on the hard drive. At this point, I'm about ready to rebuild the box anyway. I'll likely just put XP and Win7 in a dual boot and then image with the Win7 backup at that point. This is just a screw around lab machine at work...so I'd like to get to a point where I can get multiple versions of Windows back on there pretty quick. And be able to use it for other purposes and easily restore back when i want it for a test workstation again.

 

[pparks1]

Well, I did bring in a PS2 keyboard from work today and it didn't change anything whatsoever.

However, I did remember that I had previously downloaded Clonezilla and I fired that up. This worked properly and I was able to backup and restore. While it wasn't quite as fast as Macrium, it was a smaller output size which is nice for storage purposes.

Clonezilla successfully backed up and restore my triple boot environment and was able to handle ext4 on my Linux partition with no trouble whatsoever. It may not have the slickest user interface, but it's got the necessary functionality.

 

[Dinesh]

macrium is good. i still use windows built in backup feature.

 

[pparks1]

macrium is good. i still use windows built in backup feature.

I liked macrium...but it didn't care for any of my keyboards.

As far as the MS backup utility...it works just fine and I've used it at home. However, in many places I dual boot with Linux and the MS system image utility doesn't handle the Linux partitions at all. Thus not suitable for me in these environments.

 

[Dinesh]

I liked macrium...but it didn't care for any of my keyboards.

As far as the MS backup utility...it works just fine and I've used it at home. However, in many places I dual boot with Linux and the MS system image utility doesn't handle the Linux partitions at all. Thus not suitable for me in these environments.

Yep you are right. Whoever is going for a dual boot of windows with linux, let grub bootloader handle the things. It'll make life easier.

 

[SIW2]

Glad you found something that works for your setup.

 

[pparks1]

Glad you found something that works for your setup.

I'm not sure why I didn't try it sooner...I already had it downloaded and have used it in the past. Guess I got so tied up reading about these new fandangled applications that I felt it necessary to give them a shot. Oh well, stick with what works.

Thanks for taking the time to post about these other applications. I'm sure they are very helpful and work for most other members.