Backup Software 2021 *Which One You Like?*

So sorry, you’re right, I meant to say Aomei . You can now relax and have a cold beer now knowing your data is safe.

Used Acronis for years. Gave up on it. Have been using Macrium for probably 7+ years with success. Free version is adequate for my needs.
Have read good reports on EasUS.

Would you mind summarizing why you decided to leave Acronis? Acting buggy? Something new?

I actually used to use AOMEI Partition Assistant, but I like Acronis True Image a lot better.

Oh good and kinda like getting new shoes huh $) . I'll give Acronis a go but only inside VMware first. Last thing I want this long weekend is to reinstall Windows again! Last time I did that, I was all night till 9 A.M. the next day! Big reason...making the USB recovery disk! :GLASSES: Took around 2 hours waiting for the bugger to finish!

Another big reason is the recovery stage if and when it comes to that. You know, the part where you find out whether you lost everything or you didn't. :D

Syncback Pro for files and folders backed up to the NAS and a cloud account, plus Macrium Reflect for disk images

Nice, Triple backups where one complements the other in cloud plus images. :-) Looks like you're ready for doomsday!

I had a near catastrophe way back in the 90’s when a HDD crashed. I was lucky to be able to recover virtually all of the important material. That stuck. I’ve used a variety of software since. I’ve used those I mentioned for at least ten years and have been happy. Never had a hardware failure that caused much anguish since.

I forgot to mention...

I use FreeFileSync for non-system drives.

As the name implies, it's free.

It seems to work pretty well for my needs.

Great that you got it back! Time stands still when you get a computer crash. It’s like tomorrow will never come.
Cloning is good to do to. PC crashes…grab the clone, insert clone into different PC and back to normal. But with cloning, I have a feeling one might have to do a reinstall anyways. Backing up seems to be more of a chore these days. Easy but not easy. :smiley:

Looks like you’re ready for doomsday! :slight_smile: Don’t mean to go off topic but I like their website layout! Easy on the eyes with nice hues. Not too overly complicated. Wow one of the best site layout I’ve seen. Everything just links up smoothly. Click pretty link on left and results show up on the right. All on one page. This is how a site should be.

I’m using Macrium Reflect Free. Works nicely, backing up the system SSD 3-4 times pr year. I use ViceVersa, for documents and other data files, backing up each day, or with any major change. Please let me know if there is a good free alternative to ViceVersa. Else I think it is worth the money.

Many thanks for all the input from everyone. :beer: I was then able to finally make a choice! It was tough the last few hours deciding. :question:
I’ve decided to use FreeFileSync. It’s open source and ad free. Plus it’s got that nifty parallel file transfer tech. Let’s just hope I don’t have to reinstall. :smiley:

I tested many backup solutions and finally settled on restic. It has windows build as well, although I use it only for linux hosts.

If you are backing up documents and pictures, you really can’t beat the Onedrive, its built into W10 and completely seamless.

Most people never heard about it but its the single best feature of W10.

I like Paragon for Image BU. But others are acceptable.
Years ago Acronis had verify problems. And instead of addressing the problem, they just deleted the hundreds of negative posts on the forum. That’s why I stopped recommending it. But that was decades ago.

I don’t think you can do better than Syncback for file type backups.
I’ve had clients on Syncback for decades without a problem.
Very customizable if you want to get complected. Yet easy on the basic level once you get the hang of it.

Even the free version is adequate for most. I use the free version to copy huge folders or zillions of files.
I don’t trust Windows all that much for big transfers. For example, Windows is not really happy with the Quickbooks file naming conventions and often kicks out a duplicate file message. Syncback doesn’t have a problem.
A hint, when doing a backup, open up the task manager and watch the disk windows. Wait till things settle down after a big job before getting frisky with the power button. The destination disk is often still chugging away after the software thinks the job is finished.
All the Best,
Jeff

I don’t do backups, at least not like this. Precious stuff (photo’s, documents etc) are all manually put on at least 2 different drives, the photo’s go online storage too.
After many years of computing I’ve come to the conclusion that when windows breaks, to the point it’s playing up, then it’s time for a fresh install anyway. Little point in restoring a 3+ year old windows installation that is fractured anyway, you are just restoring more trouble for the future and likely it’s performing less well than it should. Windows 10 has made me a bit lazy in this respect, it is so reliable (from my point of view) compared to previous versions - having had pc’s ranging from windows 95 and every version since, I have never had windows 10 crash on me once, at least not like the older ones used to which were usually fatal.
Obviously drives breaking etc is not included in that, but like I said above, those precious things are already double backed up.

I use FreeFileSync for important photos and data and copying large files. I backup to at least 4 different external hard drives.

Clonezilla for cloning system drive.

Does any use M-Disks? 1000 year archival sounds good to me :laughing:

I’ve been doing block level backups to a NAS using Veeam for years. Never had an issue, just make sure you have the restore media created beforehand.

Oh, and be sure to to test restores from time to time.
Ya’ never know when something decides to go sideways.

Be sure to make archive copies so there are older intact backups sets just in case the worst happens as in:
Current file system /or files somehow get corrupted. Then the backup software happily copies the corrupt files over the good set.
After all, it’s only doing what you told it to do.

I’m also a believer in offline storage of backup sets. Have a few external HDs to make or copy backups sets to. After the backup is done. Unplug that sucker and malware will have a hard time jumping the air gap.
All the Best,
Jeff