Looking for rock solid backup software

[Wathnix]

Just got burned by Acronis true image home 2012. It's a real slick product with lots of great features that FAILS to restore your computer after disaster. I have my computer set for scheduled backups with validation turned on and when I went to restore, all the backups I had were bad.

I have a several computers at home running a network, plus several more friends and family that I take care of. I also have a Windows Home Server 2011 running, and plan to use that as the repository for backups. But I want better backup than what is provided on WHS, specifically the ability to mount the images and have the client do a backup right away on bootup if it misses a scheduled backup. Also the ten client limit of WHS kinda sucks

I would prefer to have a network solution but can live with regular backup software being loaded on to client computers. Most of all it must have reliable bare-metal backup and restores. Any ideas guys?

 

[Pinky]

You want it all and you can't have it. -- Faith No More

See my comments about Acronis here... I probably would have recommended Acronis as being one of the better and lower cost solutions available. Ghost (windows based) is obviously a joke and very flawed/flakey.

 

[EarthDog]

Correction. It failed for you (for some reason). Worked fine for me.

There were suggestions made already that it was potentially the HDD that was the issue. Personally, I would call Acronis and see what they have to say about it instead of throwing your hands up and walking away stating the product doesnt work.

 

[Pinky]

Best bet IMO is to get a baseline install and image from bootable media (ghost in this respect works well, version 11.5 I think or higher). Then use an xxcopy type application (or even Acronis, allway sync, etc) to do incremental backups of your data partition to an external hard drive. Anything beyond this (like restoring from iso, etc) becomes business and even enterprise class, and not only out of your reach financially, but for whatever degree of data you're housing -- impractical. Nothing any member here will have on their home computing setup is important enough to justify the insane costs for enterprise class backup solutions, which is what it sounds like you desire.

Fwiw, if you went virtual there's many virtual OS management suites that offer the kind of backup scenerio you want, for a significant cost.

 

[c627627]

TeraByte Image is better than Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image products

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=712977

 

[synphul]

Backup options - free

I'm also in the market for backup software and had also considered Acronis. I can't say for sure if it's the issue or if there's a steep learning curve - but I have seen many unhappy folks and when looking at user reviews from etailers it's only getting roughly 1-2 ratings out of 5 from a number of people.

Another option that people have mentioned with good results is NovaBackup. Just like everyone else's website, it claims to be a viable solution but I've never personally used it so ymmv. However, I did run across a link where they're offering it for free. The free version is 12.5, the latest 13.1 version is around $40-50 I believe with some speed improvements. Worth checking out.

http://www.novastor.com/en/download/pcpro is the link, it asks for a name and email addy. Then it sends you a legit working key (not just a 30 day trial) and a download link to your email. Only suggesting it cause it seemed like it might work well, it's another option and I downloaded it yesterday. Not a fan or trying to promote them or anything, just seemed like a potentially good bargain for fellow ocf folks.

Good luck

 

[snod33]

Im a noob when i comes to backing up, tried alot of backup software and most of it failed or was complicated and clunky. I found Active@ Disk Image and used the demo. Its so easy even for me. I can now restore my whole system with all my settings files and games in about 9 minutes, thats a 30 gig backup. I first tried it with a clean install of Windows 7 with all updates and drivers and the backup was held on my 16 Gig flashdrive. That installed in 3min 47 secs. Give it a try. Good luck

 

[musicfan]

Been using Paragon Backup since a friend recommended it to me over 4 years ago. Used it with Vista and Windows 7 and purchased their Backup product back then and this year an upgrade.

I create an image backup of boot drives of two computers several times per week. Takes about 10 minutes with an SSD boot drive on SATA - much longer over Ethernet to NAS. I have had to restore the image backup because of upgrades or failing disks several times, malware twice during P2P days, or recent transfers to SSD twice. Probably now about 10 x and it has worked nearly every time without problems (once had to use another image).

I never backup from within Windows but use the "PE" environment that loads during boot. My backups while Windows was on didn't work the one time I tried. I am pretty certain Paragon has a free trial offer. No I don't work for Paragon but it works for me. And their support is good. It's always good to have several backups in case one gets an error during image restore. Good luck.

 

[habbajabba]

I have been using acronis for a couple years now and it has failed me more than once. C6 suggested terabyte image and I must say it is rock solid though I have not had the pleasure of needing it as yet.

 

[Foolios]

I like:
DriveImage XML
http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm
paired with their runtime live cd:
http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-live-cd.htm