Backup and restore - incremental?

[imacken]

Does backup and restore do incremental, and can you select to restore from different (older) backups?
Thanks.

 

[Brink]

Hello Imacken,

Yes, the backups done in Windows 7 are incremental like they were in Vista. When restoring the backup, you will be able to choose from what dated backup you want to restore to.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/648-restore-backup-user-system-files.html

and

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/675-system-image-recovery.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[imacken]

Thanks Shawn.
Looks good. So, why do I (or anyone else!) need Acronis True Image to do scheduled incremental backups?

 

[Brink]

You really don't anymore, but it's just an alternative. Usually 3rd party programs will include more options and features.

 

[harpua]

My advice is to test whatever backup method you choose to make sure it actually, really, really will work to restore when you need it.

Perhaps it was just my hardware but I had trouble and was unable to successfully restore when I tried to restore from a backup made with the native Windows 7 utility. So I went back to using Acronis, which itself is not flawless either, but it seems to work better for me.

So if you do a test restore and can successfully restore with W7's backup app, then there is no reason why you shouldn't use it, if it otherwise meets your needs.

 

[imacken]

OK guys, thanks a lot.
It seems to work for me. I have left it going throughout the day, just backing up outlook and document files manually every few hours. I just tried to restore various files to different locations and all seems to be well.
This is what I use:
a) I have used Acronis 2010 purely for weekly incremental backups to an external drive as I have found all the extras to either not work (like Nonstop backup) or not be needed.
b) I also use Geniesoft's Timeline for continuous backup. Have you guys seen that? It works really well and is the closest thing to Time Machine on OS X that I've seen on Windows.
So, it looks as if I can dump Acronis and use the built in W7 backup for the weekly incremental stuff. (Do you know, even after several years, I didn't even realise that there was that facility in Vista!)

 

[Brink]

You're welcome Imacken. Just do not try and move the backup from their original location created by Windows 7. Doing so will make the backup about useless to restore from.

 

[harpua]

What failed for me with W7's BU utility was an attempt to do a complete system restore from an external USB drive when I tried to do it booting from the W7 installation disk. It simply could not find the recovery image on the external drive. Never had such problems with Acronis (but I also make clones in addition to images, just in case).

I need to be certain I can recover from a complete failure of my drive or system before I can sleep easily.

 

[imacken]

You're welcome Imacken. Just do not try and move the backup from their original location created by Windows 7. Doing so will make the backup about useless to restore from.

I presume you mean moving the actual backup encrypted files, not a restore to a different location.
Have you guys tried Timeline?

 

[Brink]

Yep, the backup files from the original saved to location and not where you want to restore to.

No, I haven't tried Timeline before.

 

[imacken]

Give Timeline a try. There's a 30 day trial on Geniesoft's site. It works just like Time Machine - continually monitoring and block backing up every 30 minutes just the changes. Then there is a Timeline in Explorer where you choose which backup to restore, or just right-click the file and choose version.
It's completely seamless and doesn't really use up much system resources. The only thing is it takes a loooong time to do the initial backup, but after that you don't even notice it's there.
Basically, it does what Nonstop backup in Acronis 2010 should do, but doesn't!
Oh, the one thing that does annoy me about it, is that it wakes the PC up when asleep to make backups unless you log off first. Very stupid, but I'm sure they'll fix that in a newer build.