looking for a backup tool

driftwood

I was wondering if anyone knows of a good backup tool

I've been using ntbackup which comes with Windows but it doesn't seem to have all that many features and I'm guessing a stand alone app probably is more powerful than this little windows tool

what are you guys using for backups?

mick32

me personally i use norton ghost,,,does for me

allend66

well, half the time I use KLS Backup Professional 2005, and the other half just regular good old WinRAR. I had a prob with KLS (my own fault) and since then I only use it to synchronise my music folder to a removeable HD.

no I use winrar to backup my documents as a rar file with recovery record.

ok, it's not a one click and forget, but it's certainly not difficult or time consuming.

SgtPepper

A very easy to use tool is called Ghost. Should do what you're looking for and maybe a bit more, since there are features that I haven't even used so far (triggered backups for example, which are a nice idea but I haven't found a sensible way to use them for my needs yet, so far I've stuck with a simple daily backup and that's that.. gotta play around with the advanced features some more I guess).

Lumberjack

Ghost seems to be pretty good and I am thinking of buying it. But I am wondering what the difference between Ghost and Norton Save and Restore is? They seem really similar. Does anyone know?

allend66

can't say for norton products, but have you tried the microsoft synctoy? it's a free download from ms website (genuine copy of windows needed, but that shouldn't worry any of us here..)

SgtPepper

Save and Restore allows you to also make backups for individual files and folder, as opposed to just your entire harddisk.

You can still have a full system backup, of course, and both options allow you to set automated schedules or even use triggers. With those, you can make a backup every time you shut down your PC.

Colin Creevey

I use S&R, too.

It's a great tool, tool really, and get's better the more you care about your data. I have to be a bit paranoid over some important stuff, so I make a backup of those files every time I boot the PC, and one full backup per week.

That way, I always have my entire system secured, and all my files are up to date with several copies even. (Not that I'd need those, but I usually only delete the old backups when I finished the full backup to save some space.)

Artist 2004

I'm just experimenting with this and am very impressed.

After doing a full back up of whatever set of folders you decide to include, you can then choose to update just the changes at intervals of minutes, hours or days, whatever you want. For example, I set an interval of two hours. The update takes one or two minutes in the background and you don't know it's happened. So I'm never more than two hours without a full backup. You can choose to compress if you want, which saves copies as zip files. However, I found that if your filenames or folders contain non-english characters the compression option is unusable. Otherwise brilliant.

For my C-drive (Windows and Programs only) I make an occasional drive image using Acronis True Image. This allows you to go back to a clean version of your system, without viruses, corrupted operating system, damaged drivers etc, in minutes.