Remote backup?

[James7679]

I have 3 PCs and 1 laptop. All of them are on Homegroup via Win7 x64. The laptop and 2 of the PCs only have 1 hard drive. Is there anyway to back all of them up to the Image/Backup drive on my main PC? I have looked for the drive over the network, but cannot see it in Backup and Restore on the secondary systems.

 

[wanchoo]

I don't know if this would be possible, but I don't know of any way to do this.

Your best option, if you don't want to partition the drives on the other three computers, would be to invest in a portable external drive and create the images on this external drive for all the three computers. Due to its portability you can hook it on to any of the three machines and restore the images created earlier.

Good luck.

 

[JDobbsy1987]

What Wanchoo has suggested is exactly what i do (only i have 2 machines).

I have a computer with an external drive connected that i have shared out to my network.
I have then just set my windows backup to run on a scheduled basis and set the backup location to be that of the external drive, such as:

\\<computername>\<sharename>\

I have found this to be very effective however I'm all for new suggestions if anyone has other ideas.

Regards,

 

[vaidas3]

in windows 7 pro, ultimate and enterprise you can backup to network location but i dont know if it works in home versions so maybe that is why you dont see a network location on backup screen.

 

[JDobbsy1987]

in windows 7 pro, ultimate and enterprise you can backup to network location but i dont know if it works in home versions so maybe that is why you dont see a network location on backup screen.

Sorry i missed that but you are indeed correct, it appears the home version does not have that functionality.

I have only really used windows backup so i'm not sure what else to suggest but if i do find something i will be sure to post back

Regards

 

[James7679]

Hmm, what about after market software? It's not that I am lazy, but I just don't have time to manually backup each individual system to a portable external. As far as partitioning goes, I don't like to backup to the primary drive. I have lost a HDD before, it sucks losing data and family pictures, etc. Currently, on my main PC, I back up and re-image twice a week to a dedicated HDD. Once a month I bring my external home from work and do a master back up and re-image, JIC the house burns down or some douche bag decides he wants to break in and steal all of my belongings.

 

[wanchoo]

As vaidas3 has stated the option to backup to a Network location is available from Windows 7 Pro upwards. You may perhaps like to upgrade your present OS to windows 7 Pro or higher.

Another thing to try would be to create a backup image on spanned DVDs but it is very time consuming and I haven't tried it lately. Used to do often in the early XP days when external drives were very pricey.

Can't think of anything else for now.

 

[James7679]

Okay, I would, of course, have to upgrade all of them to Pro...

I will think about this.