Backup software

[idlewild]

My family have a few laptops all with 40GB hd's and all of which have important data on. I was hoping to get a 160GB odd usb2 hd and then each laptop can be plugged in and it backs up the entire system. I don't want people to fuss about losing use of their computer while setting up Windows and all their programs again (no doubt it would end up me doing it anyways).

The ideal solution seems to be a program that can backup an entire partition incrementally then has a bootable cd that restore the backup (preferably from usb2 but I could also buy a NAS.

Can anyone recommend a backup program, hopefully incremental, that can back up and restore the entire system quickly?

[Kezzer]

I would recommend our product but it'd probably be out of your price range

Aren't there programs which can "sync" data in two different locations? Other than that you could just set up a share to a NAS device and place their "my documents" target at that particular share. It'd save playing around with backup software and just place the data directly to the backup device. Sure, backup usually means an extra copy, but it depends on whether you want to duplicate data or not depending on the amount of data that exists.

[dangel]

Acronis True Image - www.acronis.com

Amazon had it at half price a week back..

[Mossy]

You can back up you hard drive with one touch of a button using these external hard drives. Available in different volumes

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=463132

regards

[idlewild]

Acronis True Image sounds good, although incremental full system backup aren't possible they could backup the system infrequently and the important data and files more regularly.

What's the likelihood amazon are going to reduce the price again?

[idlewild]

You can back up you hard drive with one touch of a button using these external hard drives. Available in different volumes

That looks like a great solution. Do you know if it is capable of handling multiple different systems independently? If so it could seriously reduce the software license costs relating to multiple systems.

Do you have any one touch drives between 100GB and 300GB? Those size are either a little too small or large...

[Splash]

Acronis True Image - www.acronis.com

Amazon had it at half price a week back..

Another vote for this - use it on my machines at home, and the corp workstation version at work - it's really that damn good. I have a scheduled backup of all machines at home (or the system drive, anyways) every night to a USB 400Gb drive attached to my mailserver. It just works

Why would incremental/differentials be a problem?

EDIT - just as an aside seemingly some Staples stores are clearing out some Maxtor Shared Storage NAS devices, so it may be worth checking that out...

[dangel]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acronis-True...TF8&s=software

It's TI 9 but 43% off..

You can do incremental backups of partitions btw.

[dangel]

That looks like a great solution. Do you know if it is capable of handling multiple different systems independently? If so it could seriously reduce the software license costs relating to multiple systems.

One of the nice things about True Image is that's it's bootable - pop in the DVD/CD and boot off the disc - you can then do backups/restores right away without installing anything.

[idlewild]

Do you know how much the software has changed for the various editions? I see version 8 on ebay for £12. Is it one of those piece that makes the software more bloated then charges more for it, or is it worth getting the later versions?

[Mossy]

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=337847

the one touch software will transfer all software but this will not reduce the software licence cost due to licencing regulations :-)

[Mossy]

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=427437

we also sell the Acronic True Image software :-)

[dangel]

Do you know how much the software has changed for the various editions? I see version 8 on ebay for £12. Is it one of those piece that makes the software more bloated then charges more for it, or is it worth getting the later versions?

No, oddly enough Acronis tend to add _useful_ things to software (it's amazing I know) but mostly it's driver support for things like RAID but here's a list of features new in version 10:

Supports Microsoft Windows Vista — Ensure that you can protect you system if you upgrade to the latest version of Windows
Backup your music, video, and photos — Preserve your digital memories
Outlook backup — Preserve your emails, contacts, calendar, tasks, notes, signatures, news folders, e-mail rules and user settings with just a few mouse clicks
Application protection — Protect your application settings and avoid the time consuming process of redoing your custom settings
Quick backup of specific files — Initiate backup of specific files without being in the Acronis True Image application
Restore application settings — Avoid the hassle of customizing your applications again in case of failure
Explore backups — Easily search and recover particular files in archives just like in Windows Explorer
Create backup rules — Ensure that you never run out of space by setting limits on the amount of space allocated for backups, the number of backups and the amount of time you keep backups
Email notifications — Peace of mind by obtaining notification that your backups have completed
Save to FTP — Flexibility to store your backups where you want to

TBH there isn't a world of difference but given the choice personally i'd pony up for version 10 as this app really is worth is weight in gold.

OR buy version 9 and then purchase an upgrade version of version 10 from acronis (downloadable) -

16.44 from scan (TI version 9.0)

+

20.40 from acronis (TI 10.0 upgrade)

and it's slightly cheaper

[Splash]

Also TI has a PE agent too, so you can use it on a BartPE type thingummy, which is nice.

[idlewild]

Awesome, I'll add True Image to the order that I'm building up at scan.