Backup Software

[Pyrotechnic]

UPS just dropped off my Seagate 7200.10 320GB and AMS Venus DS3 USB/Firewire enclosure. This is going to be my backup drive so I have a mirror copy of my 200GB Maxtor drive in my desktop system.

While I could just copy and paste everything for a weekly backup, I was thinking about getting some software to make the weekly backup process a little more organized and efficient.

What's everyones favorite backup software for this purpose ?

[thefly]

acronis true image workstation 9.1 is great. You can create full images of your hd to restore if require, while windows is running.
It'll do differential backups etc etc.

It's primarily an imaging software but can be used to create great backups based on configurable events.

Anyway, that's what i use. :)

[Mizzery]

I have heard many people praise Acronis - its highly reccomended although i haven't personally tried it as I use Norton ghost at work.

.
If you're looking for something free, easy and a step above copy and paste - you can use ntbackup - the built in windows backup utility - and schedule it with the windows task scheduler to run on some sort of schedule you set up. There are also good freeware (http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/backupandimage.shtml) backup utilities out there that offer more than what the windows one - but hey its already installed and using disk space.

That aside - the ability to make a complete image of your hard drive has advantages if you have the space for more than one image. If you do a complete backup of your drive with an imaging software like acronis, ghost or some other - i would reccomend restoring the first one you make to be sure of the restore procedure.

[Pyrotechnic]

I'll check out that software.

What backup method is going to be the most practical for me ? I keep around 150GB of data on my 200GB drive. Is this going to take ridiculously long to do a full backup each week or am I better off with differential or incremental backups ? (It's a Seagate 7200.10 connected via Firewire 400)

[Mizzery]

Incremental vs Full - well you have 150GB of data - how much changes on a week to week basis? If a lot changes in that week - then whatever changes gets added to the original file. If you change 30GB every week - (could be making a minor change to a 30GB file) then each week thats going to get added on - so every month its going to need to get redone anyways. You might want to go full on the week and incremental on days in between. No matter what - doing a full backup on 150GB is going to take some time. Acronis has a trial of the home version - take a look and see just how long it will take.

If i wasn't running raid 5 - i'd prolly want a weekly full backup with daily incrementals tacked on - and I'd prolly want about double what I was backing up to fit it - more if i changed a lot regularly.

[Pyrotechnic]

Well I got Acronis, but I'm not sure it is capable of what I want to achieve. Rather than backup to a single file, I simply want to have the files copied over to the backup drive so I will be able to access them on the backup drive as if I was accessing the original drive, then be able to update each week on what has been changed or added. Is Acronis capable of this or do I need different software ? Backing up to a single file defeats the whole purpose of what I bought the external drive for.

[hyperasus]

Another good work for acronis. I use it and love it. Works ever time even on my rigs that have raid.

[Pyrotechnic]

I've done a little more research, and I think what I need rather than backup software to archive everything to single file, is synchronization software to keep the files on both drives synchronized. I've looked around on sourceforge for something free but it's all pretty primitive. Can anyone recommend synchronization software ?

[Jon]

I use ViceVersa Pro for drive syncing over true drive imaging. I've also used FileSync which is decent, but not as feature-full.

Neither are free, but not overly expensive.

[Pyrotechnic]

I downloaded the trial of ViceVersa Pro and i'm liking it so far. I synced all 189GB of data to the new drive. Took at 3 hours and 48 minutes, average transfer rate of 15mb/s and a peak of 20mb/s. It's so painfully slow because both drives are in external enclosures and connected via USB 2.0 to my laptop. Once I get back to the dorm, the 200GB will be back in my desktop connected via PATA and the new 320GB external will be connected via Firewire 400 so I should see much better performance.

The claims for the speed of USB 2.0 have got to be a joke though.