What are your favourite backup programs, and why?

[ZaO]

Hey guys. I know there's plenty of info around the net about free backup programs, but I felt like asking you guys what you like using. I've been using Cobian Backup 11 for a long time. It's a great program! I love all the features it has. But, I just feel like giving something else a go. I'm looking for something else that is also free, with the same kind of functionality. One of my favourite things about Cobian is the Volume shadow copy thing.. or whatever it's called. That means it can just make a copy of a file to backup if the file is in use (which would normally prevent you backing it up).

So, what do you like using, and why?

Thanks

Edit: This is just for backing up my data hdd on my desktop computer to an external hdd. Nothing too crazy Though I do appreciate lots of different options for backing up. The only backup type I like to do is Incremental backups, with a full one every 6 or something.

[shaithis]

My favourite is Veeam, although it's only for virtual machines

For physical, I am currently using Acronis Advanced Backup. It's fast and does what I want, although haven't compared it to Cobian. The main thing is it won't run a job while something is trying to heavily utilise your CPU (like a game!) After trying quite a few solutions, not one of them did everything I wanted I want central management, remote wake (and stay awake during backup), shared dedupe storage and intelligent schedules (won't run while I am gaming).

[ChinesePate]

Cobian Backup

[Optimaximal]

I don't do direct backup for my personal stuff - I just sorta rely on Dropbox's change control and my in-home NAS running RAID1.

At work, it's a mash-up of VMware Replication, Backup Exec, Amazon Glacier, Dropbox for Business and Windows Server Backup.

[peterb]

dump

dumps the files on my server's RAID 1 to tape.

[SUMMONER]

Cobian Backup for permanently connected drives and AllwaySync (free for moderate personal use only) for drives that come and go.
The nice thing about AllwaySync is that it can mark a drive, so it will recognise it even its drive letter has changed. This also means that AllwaySync can automatically backup on connection of the drive and will never backup to the wrong drive, just because another has taken over the drive letter.

Another utility I could not do without is PathSync, totally awesome. Just a quick and easy on demand folder sync utility that I keep on my USB stick.

[DDY]

In the recent past I've been using Windows' own backup tools to automatically make shadow copies of my user folders to my file server and occasionally whole system images.

[ZaO]

Thanks for the suggestions so far. Looks like I have a few things to try out

Btw, I just added this info into my first post, as I really I should've stated this from the start: This is just for backing up my data hdd on my desktop computer to an external hdd. Nothing too crazy Though I do appreciate lots of different options for backing up. The only backup type I like to do is Incremental backups, with a full one every 6 or something.

[Splash]

My favourite is Veeam, although it's only for virtual machines

For physical, I am currently using Acronis Advanced Backup. It's fast and does what I want, although haven't compared it to Cobian. The main thing is it won't run a job while something is trying to heavily utilise your CPU (like a game!) After trying quite a few solutions, not one of them did everything I wanted I want central management, remote wake (and stay awake during backup), shared dedupe storage and intelligent schedules (won't run while I am gaming).

You know Veeam have a free product for physical machines now, right? It's not what I'd call enterprise ready, but for a couple of machines at home it's not too shabby.

[ApophisXP]

Backblaze, enable and forget about it till you need it.

[sonyman]

I use Acronis True image 2015, ive been using Acronis since 2010 and although they try make it easier by having most options automated, its becoming more harder with the latest edition to customise how u want it

[Zak33]

SyncToy from Microsoft

show it the file on the left you want copied... show it the destination file on the right where you want the files to be backed up too...

choose what sory of sync you want.. click run

lovely

[chrestomanci]

Backblaze, enable and forget about it till you need it.

Agreed, except that Backblaze have no Linux support (only Windows & Macs).

If you need Linux support, then I recommend Crashplan, which has the same subscription cost as Backblaze. ($5/month).

Another handy feature of Crashplan, is that you can backup between computers on your network without a subscription, and potentially allowing faster restores. Eg. If you loose your laptop, then you can restore to it's replacement from your desktop PC over your local LAN, which will be far faster than downloading many Gigabytes via the internet.

An potential issue with either service is that they are based in the USA, and though backups are encrypted, the service providers have the key, so it is reasonable to assume that the NSA have a second copy of anything you backup with them. If that is a concern, then you could consider Spideroak, who have designed their system so that they don't know the key and cannot decrypt your data.

[Denny Cage]

CrashPlan,

It's Free and including the unique hosting of the personal backup on a friend’s computer.

[ZaO]

Thanks guys. I honestly tried out a lot of programs! In the end, I just went back to Cobian! It works best for me

I did have to use my backups lastnight and today actually. I found quite an annoying problem. I do a full backup, then a bunch of incrementals, then a full one etc.. So when restoring, I basically just put the incrementals in with, and overwriting if necessary, the full backup, in the correct order of course. This works well for the most part, but I end up with a lot of files that I have deleted and no longer want. The task of going through and finding them is killer I wish there was a backup type that could accomodate for this. I know part of the point of a backup is to be able to recover deleted files, but in my case, it wasn't what I wanted. I suppose a mirror type backup would be good for this. But then again, that would mirror files with any that may go corrupt, meaning I'd have no good backup of them. This stuff is kinda awkward eh! If only full backups could be done in less time..

[Moby-Dick]

Veeam Endpoint Free gives you a number of points in time you can restore in a single step without having to mess around. Even though its an image level backup , you can still pull individual files out of it. It also uses changed block tracking , so the incrementals are pretty small.

Yes I know I work for Veeam ;-) but I had to use it myself yesterday after my OS SSD died on me.