What backup software do you use?

B0bbyEwing

Referring to PC backing up here & Windows [10 in my case].

I remember yonks ago Acronis was the one that everyone seemed to use. This then shifted to Macrium Reflect some years ago. The thing I liked most about Macrium Reflect was ..... it was free!

Just now gone to download it in order to do a complete backup to a new drive only to see that it's no longer free & you've to pay. Suppose all good things come to an end & all that.

What do you guys use then?

MattMattMattUK

B0bbyEwing said:

Referring to PC backing up here & Windows [10 in my case].

I remember yonks ago Acronis was the one that everyone seemed to use. This then shifted to Macrium Reflect some years ago. The thing I liked most about Macrium Reflect was ..... it was free!

Just now gone to download it in order to do a complete backup to a new drive only to see that it's no longer free & you've to pay. Suppose all good things come to an end & all that.

What do you guys use then?

I do not. All files are backed up on either Google Drive or Dropbox on constant basis, I copy all files to a physical drive once a week and they are archived so that there are multiple copies and I delete the oldest when it gets full. I also do a monthly version of the same on two separate drives on alternating months, I store one at home and one in my office, so separate locations. 

Programs, games etc. I would just reinstall. If the device was in some way compromised I would flatten it and do a full reinstall of Windows. A full Windows reinstall, the reinstalling Office, Creative Cloud and a few dozen game only takes a couple of hours at most and is by far the best option rather than attempting to install programs via a backup, especially if the device was compromised. 

Vitor

Documents/Pictures are synced to OneDrive.

System Image of C:\ plus UEFI etc. I take every month using Windows Backup in Control Panel 

Paradigm

Macrium reflect free is still available for legal download here https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/macrium_reflect_free_edition.html

It is an older version though & is no longer updated.

Newcad

Still using Macrium Reflect 8 Free, and will be for the forseeable future.(I have the original installer downloaded from Macrium before they withdrew it).

I may consider buying Reflect 9 when it (eventually) gets released, but probably not unless there is something amazingly different about it.

onomatopoeia99

I run a subversion server in a virtual machine on my server.  All my critical data is stored in a repositry.  I use the tortoise SVN client on each desktop to commit changes back to the repositry and sync from it.  The whole virtual machine running the server is then backed up nightly to two different locations using automatic facilities in the hypervisor and backups are rotated automatically..

If I commission a new PC or VM I install the SVN client, connect and update which pulls the whole repo down.  

My use case is probably different from everyone else's though.,

I do not back up the operating system or software on any of my desktops, only my important personal data, which means a lot less data to store,  If I suffer an OS failure (extremely rare, we're not still in the bad old days of XP) I just wipe and reinstall.

400ixl

Stopped bothering with backups years ago. All local data of any importance is sync'd to multiple places including Cloud these days.

Most enterprises have stopped backing up end user compute devices these days. They utilise cloud sync of some form for data. Many apps are now SaaS services and the data is stored in the cloud anyway.

If you are using it to do a migration of data to another drive, then your data is already at risk id it is not syn'd in real time to somewhere else. If it were you can just re-syn ot to another drive and no need for backup / restore software.

victor2

I still use Macrium free for my local backup routines, on a monthly full backup with differentials in between. 
I also have my photos in a folder synced with Google Drive.
Some "critical" folders are backed up daily to the cloud using iDrive free.
My data SSD recently died and I recovered everything from my backups, so it's been tested. 

Doshwaster

400ixl said:

Stopped bothering with backups years ago. All local data of any importance is sync'd to multiple places including Cloud these days.

Most enterprises have stopped backing up end user compute devices these days. They utilise cloud sync of some form for data. Many apps are now SaaS services and the data is stored in the cloud anyway.

If you are using it to do a migration of data to another drive, then your data is already at risk id it is not syn'd in real time to somewhere else. If it were you can just re-syn ot to another drive and no need for backup / restore software.

I would agree. For most use cases there is very little point in doing system image backups these days. Data is on OneDrive and/or Google Drive and/or local Synology NAS. Very little software installed locally and what I do have (MS Office) can easily be reinstalled from the web.

At work all documents are in OneDrive/Sharepoint in the case of a failure of an individual machine just log into another one.

Same with my Android phone. WHen I get a new one just login in Google and everything automatically synchs up.

Olinda99

I, on the other hand, don't use onedrive or Google drive and all my software is installed locally on my Windows 11 drive - the C drive

all my data on the other hand is on a separate logical drive - the d drive 

I use Macrium reflect to take a system image of my c drive ie the system and settings and applications 

I use alway sync to synchronise my data on my d drive to external hard drives

Bradden

I've used this software for years.. basic but does the job and  free.

Best free backup software for Windows - everything you need (2brightsparks.com)