Backup Software Recommendation Needed

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

I am looking for a backup software for backups and recovery that will work
for mapped networked drives. I am currently using Iomega Backup Pro, but it
never seems to complete. I have a lot of documents and pictures that I put
on my external hard drive.

I saw the reviews on Acronis...but does this do backups, to where I can go
to my external hard drive and view my files that are backed up?? I was
confused what the disk imaging meant (not a real techy here).
 
An Image stores exactly that ie an image of the complete disk, or whatever
you select.
Using Acronis you can browse the image and restore a specific file if
required.
You can also use Acronis to restore the complete win o/s
I believe they have a trial version download on their web site

Usually backup/imaging software compressess the backup so the individual
backed up files would not be visible to the program that origonally created
them. They have to be 'decompressed'

You can also get std copy software, I use Backer, which copies and
synchronises between drives.
 
NTBackup, included in Windows, works with network drives. Another good
backup program that is network aware is NovaBackup.

http://www.novastor.com/pcbackup/backup/n_backup.html

Backup programs create a backup file which can be verified. You can
generally restore individual files but you can't view the contents of a
file.

Acronis TI isn't a backup program but a disk imaging program that creates an
image of a disk or partition. You can mount the image and view/copy the
files in it.

It sounds like you may want a program that just copies files. You can do
this yourself with scripts using xcopy or there are tools like Synchtoy that
work well.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...f1-2287-40ea-8a6f-57bd8695f23d&DisplayLang=en

I use a combination of Acronis TI and Synchtoy. I use TI to image my hard
drive to an external USB drive and also DVDs. I use Synchtoy to copy my
pictures and documents to a network share. I am a firm believer in multiple
backups.
 
Candice:

I use Norton Ghost 9.0. I got several PC's on a home Netwrok where I mapped
the Drive letter of the remote PC, and made an image of the mapped drive onto
a USB storage drive.

I've restored from image files from Norton 9.0 and found the process
convenient. All I did was click on one file (of many) of the image set, and
file listing would appear as it does in Windows Explorer. Go to a paticular
file, click, restore and its done.

I done it on a few occasions for the practice, and a few more occasions when
the wife deleted some files by accident. I restored the "Docuements and
Setting" when my user profile got corrupted.

Just to be safe, I also wrote a script using the DOS "xcopy" command, and
copy files under "My Documents" to a subdirectlory, and schedule the copy job
nightly.

Frank
 
Hello Candice,

In addition or expansion to Kerry's advice, you might try using xcopy to do
a simple copy routine of your personal files to your external USB drive.

Right-click on your desktop and select to create a new "text" document.
You can open/edit it with WordPad or NotePad.

Within your new text document, copy-and-paste the below command line.
(copy only what's between the ++++)
This is one (1) line of text, please treat it as such, your monitor might
break it into 2 lines when you open this post.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++
C:\Windows\System32\Xcopy.exe "C:\Documents and Settings\Richard\My
Documents\*.*" "F:\Backup of Richard's Documents" /E /D /W /Y /I /R /K
+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Replace "Richard" with YOUR user name.
Replace "F:\" with the drive letter of your USB drive (Maybe "E:\" if you
have only one CD drive).
Replace "Backup of Richard's Documents" to a folder name of your choice.
This will be the name of the folder created on the root of your USB drive.
ALL files and folders within YOUR "My Documents" folder will be copied here.

Save the new text file giving it a name such as "Backup.bat" and exit the
file.
The file name "Backup" can be anything of your choosing.
The file extension ".bat" is critical, leave this as ".bat". (without the
quotes)

The xcopy.exe command is already built in to the Windows operating system.
Therefore you might consider it free.

Using xcopy might be crude, but it's a far cry better than doing nothing...
and it's cheep!

I have a scheduled task setup at work that copies ALL my work documents to
an external drive every day at 10:00AM and 2:30PM.
I'm tickled-to-death with it.

The first time you double-click the file icon on your desktop, it may take
several minutes to run due to all the files it copies. But from then on, it
will only copy files and folders that are either new or have been updated
(via the file time-stamp) since the last time you ran the backup routine.

Be sure to close all files and running applications (that you start) before
running this, open or locked files may trip-up the backup routine.

When you run this, a new (DOS) window will open on your desktop (black
background). You'll see your command line containing the xcopy.exe command
and be prompted to press any key to continue. When it completes, the window
will close and your done.

Here is what the switches at the end of the command line do...

/E = Copies directories and subdirectories, including empty ones.

/D = Copies new files/folders and files whose source time is newer than the
destination time.

/W = Prompts you to press a key to begin.

/Y = Suppresses prompting to confirm you want to overwrite an existing
destination file.

/I = (This helps xcopy differentiate between files and folders) Otherwise,
it will stop and ask you.

/R = Overwrites read-only files.

/K = Copies attributes.

There are many more switches you can use. I find these to be the most
useful.

Like I said, this is alittle crude and does have drawbacks. Such as if you
rename a file OR folder on drive C:, then you will wind up with 2 copies on
your USB drive. 1 under the new name and 1 under the old name. This will
not synchronize the files and folders. It just makes a copy of the files.
It won't rationalize for you either. But also like I said, it's a far cry
better than doing nothing and it will be handy if drive C: crashes. I mean,
so what, twice a year or so, just delete the root backup folder on the USB
drive and start a fresh backup.

Now if I've created curiosity and question, please post back. I'll try to
watch this discussion for several days.

Hope this helps,

Richard in Va.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
Hello Frank,

Don't suppose you could copy-and-paste your script into a reply-post to this
newsgroup.

I've never used scripts and would love to learn. Starting out with one that
runs the xcopy command would be a good starting point for me.

I'm still using batch routines. But then... they've done well for me!

Thanks,

Richard in Va.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
Candice said:
I am looking for a backup software for backups and recovery that will work
for mapped networked drives. I am currently using Iomega Backup Pro, but it
never seems to complete. I have a lot of documents and pictures that I put
on my external hard drive.

I saw the reviews on Acronis...but does this do backups, to where I can go
to my external hard drive and view my files that are backed up?? I was
confused what the disk imaging meant (not a real techy here).
Click to expand...
Suggest that you ask Acronis technical support. They seem to be very
helpful.

-- Jeff Barnett


PS If you decide to but it, use www.newegg.com, they seem to be
considerably less expensive than elsewhere.
 
Acronis TI isn't a backup program but a disk imaging program that creates an
image of a disk or partition. You can mount the image and view/copy the
files in it.
Click to expand...

Version 9 has file backup too. However, I wouldn't recommend the file
backup program because it barfed up errors on restore for me and others.
Acronis didn't have any solutions other than "Thank you for your interest
in Acronis products" and "Make sure you are using the latest version of the
software."

In the end I stopped using the image backup too because I didn't trust it.

I would recommend NTI Backup version 3, if you can get it. I've never had a
problem with it. I tried v. 4 and it had errors. Goes to show a new version
doesn't always mean a better product.
I use a combination of Acronis TI and Synchtoy. I use TI to image my hard
drive to an external USB drive and also DVDs. I use Synchtoy to copy my
pictures and documents to a network share. I am a firm believer in multiple
backups.
Click to expand...

That's definitely good advice.
 
Box134 said:
Version 9 has file backup too. However, I wouldn't recommend the file
backup program because it barfed up errors on restore for me and
others.
Acronis didn't have any solutions other than "Thank you for your
interest
in Acronis products" and "Make sure you are using the latest version
of the
software."

In the end I stopped using the image backup too because I didn't trust
it.
Click to expand...

That was where I ended up -- I even paid for the version 9
upgrade and have given up on TI (the same responses you
mentioned). If you read their support forums, many people
were getting the same answers to various issues.
I switched to using Terabyte's stuff - BING,
Image 4 Dos and Image for Windows. Inexpensive, fits
on a floppy or bootable CD as you wish and works well.
Not very polished and kind of geeky, but it does work
reliably. It does not have file backup, only imaging
(and partitioning), but it does have a free utility that will
allow you to extract files out of an image - they also have
their own news server and support groups that are good.
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com is the home page.

You might also want to check out Genie backup -- I
was fairly impressed when I experimented with it a while
back on a test machine. http://www.genie-soft.com/default.html
That software does file backups and they also have a good
support forum.

mikey
 
That was where I ended up -- I even paid for the version 9
upgrade and have given up on TI (the same responses you
mentioned). If you read their support forums, many people
were getting the same answers to various issues.
I switched to using Terabyte's stuff - BING,
Image 4 Dos and Image for Windows.
Click to expand...

I used BING when I was dual-booting. Yes, it's a solid product. Nothing
showy... just works.
 
Back
Top