Backup Software

Hey guys,

I'm looking for preferably free back up solution. Tried searching the forums but I didn't find quite what I was looking for. Here's what I want to do. I'm on windows 8.1

+ I'd have a fixed structure of folders/files I'd need to backup on D: (Documents/Pictures/etc.)
+ There would be little daily changes in the files compared to the full size of the backup, e.g. 200GB of Photos are very likely to never change from backup to backup, but a few test documents, reports are.
+ Evey day when I power up my machine for the first time, the software should check if anything has changed on D: and should then copy / change the files to E: so I got an up to date mirror
+ it would be nice to have some MD5 / CRC check of the copied files
+ preferably free

Any Input?

The backup solution integrated into Windows would probably suffice. It's not extremely robust, but it can handle differential/incremental as well as full backups. Certain versions of Windows (home, pro, enterprise, etc) have different capabilities (ie, I don't think home can backup to a network drive), but all should be able to backup to a local drive. To get it to run at startup you'll have to use the command line utility, but it should be doable.

I always like to sort of see what might be available from proggie to proggie. This site tends to do a good job of telling what is what. Mostly anyway.

Best Free File-Based Backup Program

Thanks! I will go through the list and give the windows tool a shot. Looks like the site is worth a bookmark anyway rgone! I was under the impression that I read somewhere that Windows couldn't handle differential/incremental backups, will test it though!

I wouldn't need such things as backing up to an external drive as I don't own any.

FreeFileSync is what I'd recommend if all you want is file/folder backup.
http://www.freefilesync.org/
I use it exclusively for my portable flash drive.

The built-in Windows 8.1 backup tool will do what you want. It will make an initial full system backup and then incremental after that. The only thing I don't like about it is that there is no built in scheduler. You can however use Powershell commands to put it on a schedule.