So I've decided to try and tidy up my own backup plan as it as quite laborious to the point I wasn't doing it to plan, and I've been weighing up options both for storage and software.
Like I imagine most people do, I have different 'types' of data, some frequently-changing and in need of regular, versioned backpups, and other stuff where a simple mirror will do, some of which is kept locally more for convenience than anything e.g. DRM-free game files, software, etc. And keeping 30 copies of 10GB+ game files is a waste of backup space.
Currently I use a combination of Cobian and FreeFileSync but I'm open to alternatives and don't mind paying but would much rather it be a one-off payment rather than a subscription (I've looked in the past but am yet to find anything better than the free stuff I already had). Oh and I also do the odd drive image just-in-case but keeping a ton of large drive images seems a bit wasteful when the majority of the data on C: is easily replaceable.
I also don't really like Windows' own backup utilities - the Win7 file backup one isn't bad but much prefer Cobian despite it being effectively deprecated. As for the Windows image backup, it's failed me one time too many with backups seeming to complete properly but refusing to restore when they're most needed, being in a horrid proprietary format and having a bizarre permissions system meaning they don't seem to be recognised properly (or not without some work) if you move them between drives - and a backup that's so prone to breaking is pretty useless IMO. Oh and you can't actually 'see' the backups on the drive without messing with permissions, and you have no idea which backup you're looking at, what computer it was from or anything, unless you had the foresight to make a separate note of all this - using filenames and visible directories would be far too simple...
I've said this before - I like the idea of tape backups for archiving but really can't justify the cost of an LTO5 drive over just buying a bunch of HDDs given the bulk of the backup data doesn't change frequently.
So what does everyone use? Cobian has been great but is a bit slow and is no longer maintained, sadly. I'm after something similar, able to backup to e.g. differential/incremental archives, not just being a fancy file copy utility which dumps everything into a disorganised mess with strange file names and/or the necessity of using the exact same version of the program to restore said archives. Yes, backup software creators - restoration being possible (particularly when stressed) is actually an important feature!!!