Deciding what backup software to use relies on understanding what kind of backup you want to create. I’ll review the options.
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Deciding what backup software to use relies on understanding what kind of backup you want to create. I’ll review the options.
source
✅ Watch next ▶ What’s the Difference Between an Image Backup and a Files-and-Folder Backup? ▶ https://youtu.be/RQ1Mp1Rh4B0
You make some really good points. When I started working on enterprise level system management, my boss at the time, took me aside and drilled into my head that the most important thing I manage is customer data; make sure you never loose a single byte of it. I took that to heart and thank God, it all worked until the day I left that career. I know of a systems administrator who worked in my group who was managing an enterprise level system running Oracle. I don't know exactly what she did but she ended up crashing the customers system and did not manage her backups either. There was no database to be found in the backups. Needless to say that co$t the company over a million dollars. This happened in the late nineties, controls were lax back then.
I have used Uranium Backup to back up critical data without getting too complicated, it is a great option.
If your main disk crashed, would you restore a full image or take the opportunity to have a nice clean install and just restore the user data? The former option might be quicker, depending on how much data you have but just backing up your actual data will be be quicker and consume less space
How do i figure out how large a capacity of a usb flash drive to back up my desktop system?
I personally like making full backup images since my files are not on my OS SSD, I use a combo of things depending on what kind of system is is, I use Acronis bootable backup software for windows if I need to make a system backup, or Todo from EaseUS is another good option. For Linux systems I use Clonezilla and for cloning Any OS's boot drive since it works so well as both a backup and cloning software.
Thanks!
Wouldn't leaving an external drive connected for automatic backups expose your backup to any viruses/malware/ransomware that infects your computer? I have an Outlook calendar notification remind me every month to backup, I connect my external SSD, do the backup, then immediately disconnect the SSD until next time. Am I going about this the right way?
With my nearly 50 years experience with personal computers, I have gotten really, really, paranoid, the stuff that I absolutely have to have access to NOW even if my PC is dead, is on OneDrive. I have an external drive doing a system backup weekly, and an incremental backup daily. I also have an off site backup service which continuously updates the changes to my system.
Wrong title!Loss of time
time waster, nothing about backup software!
I'm surprised at the OneDrive recommendation because I've seen you criticizing OneDrive quite a bit (and for a good reason, I believe).
I love this. Have a problem where the ‘cloud’ backup happens. I get lots of people who’s internet (not network) fails routinely. But over time, they should be able to get and restore from the ‘cloud.’
Can you recommend an app / program that would allow backup spanning? I already backup offsite to an unlimited Sync account and have been manually backing up the nas (now over 55TB an growing) but it would be nice if I could just use hard drives much like tapes in a tape backup system so that from an archival perspective, I can continue to grow my backup as my master data backup grows.
BAIT N SWITCH VIDEO
Title = "What Backup Software Should I use?"
Video Content = Everything BUT what was in the title
Come on man….your advice is awesome but why have such a different video than the title? I'm sure you hate it with people bait and switch on you….why do it to your viewers??
Very good lecture, thank you.
Good. My best success has been Marcrium Reflect, that has saved me many times. That is for C drive. All my other data is on other partitions and multiple SSD and HDD, and iDirect, using FreeFilesync, which also has saved me hundreds of times.
And don't forget about those invisible files.
I downloaded Easus Todo. I created an Image Backup and have tried to create an Emergency Flash Drive for Windows PE twice. Both times it says ISO file Exported and I guess successfully completed, but, when I look at the flash drive in File Explorer it says Empty. I did a full Format on a 16GB Flash Drive but it doesn't seem to create the Emergency Boot Disk. I have an External Hard Disk connected with over 1TB of free space on it. It contains the Image Backup. Should I create the ISO file on the External Hard Drive also?
It's a solid reminder of how important it is to back up our data. I’ve been using CubeBackup for Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace lately, and it’s been awesome. The automatic backups give me peace of mind, knowing all my emails, files, and settings are securely saved and easy to restore
I have a Seagate 8TB external drive on which I intended to make automated 'backups'. It came with backup software installed but I found that difficult to use. I also have an older version of Macrium Reflect which I used during the trial period (now out of time but it did make a disk image for me, stored on the external drive).
My initial thought about making a backup on to the external drive was I would back up all my files and folders, including a lot of files made historically that I didn't want to lose but didn't want taking up space on my computer. I was running out of space on my 2TB internal SSD.
I fundamentally misunderstood what a backup is in computer terms. Well…I come from a scientific background and I learnt how to use a computer in the late 1990s when everything was relatively simple. You did it yourself. You backed up your files manually on external storage at the end of every day or week. I can't remember if there was any such thing as a disk image or backup software back then, at least not for the consumer (I expect there was for large companies).
I found the Seagate drive backup software confusing and it didn't do what I expected it to do. It was basically disk image software.
The external drive is loud when running. There's nothing wrong with the drive, I mean it's not malfunctioning, but we're talking about a noise like a jet engine (weeeeeeeeeee) and it's right next to me. Leaving it permanently plugged in and automatically turning on when my laptop powers up is irritating due to that noise. I find myself immediately on edge, it makes me feel like 'something' is about to happen. Normally computing is relaxing for me, but not when that drive is on. For sanity I left it disconnected until I needed it. This meant that when it was finally plugged in it would start backing up straight away, stopping me from working until it had finished. When it does attempt to backup it often seems to fail part way through. I never know if it's going to complete successfully. It's just really really annoying. So I've turned off auto backup, leaving me with a drive that doesn't get used very often and not for the purpose it was probably designed for.
Backing up the files and folders (which was actually my plan) has to be done manually by drag and drop, and it takes a while. I don't want to overwrite old files with new updated versions of the same file (in case the new version isn't 'quite' right; as a lot of my work is creative). So I copy the documents, videos and pictures folders over in their entirety, resulting in a lot of duplicates to sort through (and filling up the hard drive). I know there must be a better way of doing that, however I'm impatient, I don't want to use folder merge and sit there attending to every pop up dialog box, choosing if I want to keep it, chuck it or add a number to the file name. I'd have to open each set of duplicates to see what was in the files if I wanted to do a proper job of it. Not doing that.
The data therefore builds up and builds up and I maybe get around to sorting through it once a year, but I have my files, all of them, which is what I want. I do not share my files with anyone. There is no group work going on, no need for cloud storage or remote access for anyone. It's uncomplicated.
I understand that a disk image is helpful in the case of a hard drive failing, but in my experience that doesn't happen very often. In all the decades I have been working a failed drive has happened twice. A disk image is also useful when you get a new computer so you can transfer your set up, programs, defaults and settings, but you can easily do that just beforehand as long as the old one still works. I see little use for a disk image. To me it's not the most important thing.
What I need is my files safely stored and easy to access immediately. I suspect many others want that too and are just as confused as I was on discovering that that isn't what most backup software is made for. Ok I'm sure it can manage that too if you configure the software right, but most backup software doesn't appear to be aimed at doing that. It pushes you into making a disk image. It's more of an emergency rescue system. It's an ambulance to the hospital rather than a visit to the pharmacy. At least, from what I can see from my limited perspective – but I'm sure I'm not as well informed as those with a lot of experience in the industry.
Meanwhile forget the software, I'm going to sit there in front of the laptop, turn on the external drive, sort through every file manually and reduce all those duplicate folders into one useful one. I could be here some time 😂
An image restoral disc will not always work as expected. For example, after a hard drive crash, I restored my PC to a new C drive using an image I had created, and forever more afterward, the computer tells me that I have installed an illegal version of windows.
Fortunately I can still operate the machine, but not without nag windows popping up all the time, telling me that I'm a criminal.
I use one "live" drive – the one in my computer – and two backup drives. I do not encrypt anything, since I want to be able to read this data from any machine I might possess in the future. Encryption is one of the easiest and most convenient ways I know to lose access to all my data.
Wel explained!
Ok but answer the title question, What software is best to use???
When I get a bigger HD, I keep the old one as a backup. Now I have boxes and boxes of backups, but it's still better than losing critical data.
so I want cloud back up for folders with files. No sync, just park them somewhere in the cloud. where can I do this if all these programs are just for sync?
What is your take on Microsoft Synctoy! for backup!
so nothing on here for the simple laymen then, all the talk is just white noise to me.
Waste of time
Think about the big fires recently in CA. What if your whole house and car burned? No more local computers and backups. Maybe your phone is even gone. Hopefully you have offsite backups. But what about your passwords? Using your phone for 2FA? What if it's gone?
Personally I do NOT do a system backup. I do regular (every couple days, alternating drives) of all folders I don't want to lose, and all install sets. It's worked very well when my main computer crapped out
If I have a major crash, I am just about certain to be replacing hardware, and I don't want to install the image of an old system over a new machine. I reinstall (or update) my saved install sets, then copy over the file structure the whole file structure.
The content is good, but I had to give this a thumbs-down because the title is completely misaligned with the content.
Seems like DISM Restore Health would be desirable prior to initial backup with Macrium or EaseUS Todo , maybe even prior to periodic backups. Is this a 'duuh' comment or relevant here ??
search for restoring your PC, to find out what backups work and what fails. Los Angeles fire victims are thankful they did online backups.
Back dat ass up
I think a lot of people don't use or may not even be aware of the File History feature in Windows. This is another automatic tool for backing up and restoring files. It is not an imaging app, but does work very well for file backup and restore. To get started with File History, just type File History in the search box in the Windows task bar.
I am super wary of installing a piece of the People's Republic of China's spyware onto my Japanese laptop. EaseUS is made by a company called Chengdu Yiwo, Ltd. If you think that Emperor Xi has not ordered a back-door into your entire computer's image, I have a great investment opportunity: an OTC REIT for sale whose exclusive asset is a bridge joining the boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan. Your super-voting shares will be guaranteed personally by my firm the moment your check clears.
One app: Linux Timeshift. The backup is performed to a LUKS encrypted drive.
I manually copies files from my secondary hard drive to external drive once a month but many videos on youtube recommend image disk backup so now I'm thinking to try image disk backup my c drive ssd but can i still keep doing manually backing up files from secondary hard drive to external which i most familiar with?
Good content; thanks! One additional suggestion: many BIOS settings can be configured to boot the machine on a routine schedule. Likewise, one may automate the backup software to launch and run on the same schedule, launching a few minutes after the BIOS boots itself. The backup rule in the backup software can be set to shutdown the machine after running and checking the integrity of the backup routine. All of these tasks can be set to run overnight while you sleep or whenever it's convenient such that it wouldn't interfere with your work schedule or depend on a forgetful mind to run manually.
What about laptops?
Great info. Thanks