Back the f*** up
June 17, 2011 9:50 AM Subscribe
Looking for great windows backup software, both local and offsite for my home computer.
Having nearly lost 1,000's of albums and pictures, I have realized that I need to implement a more robust backup system for my computer. I was wondering if I could get recommendations for both local backup software solutions and then some mozy-like offsite solution that won't break the bank.
Having nearly lost 1,000's of albums and pictures, I have realized that I need to implement a more robust backup system for my computer. I was wondering if I could get recommendations for both local backup software solutions and then some mozy-like offsite solution that won't break the bank.
I use Crashplan. Works well enough for both of your scenarios, including backing up to your own remote computer (which is free!).
posted by schmod at 10:16 AM on June 17, 2011
posted by schmod at 10:16 AM on June 17, 2011
BackBlaze (Windows and Mac only) gives you unlimited backup for one computer for $5/month (discounts for yearly subscriptions).
CrashPlan (Windows, Mac, Linux) allows you to backup to another computer you own, or to a friends computer, or to CrashPlan's servers (for a price). With CrashPlan and a friend (for the offsite backups), you could have a great free backup solution.
posted by cellojoe at 10:28 AM on June 17, 2011
CrashPlan (Windows, Mac, Linux) allows you to backup to another computer you own, or to a friends computer, or to CrashPlan's servers (for a price). With CrashPlan and a friend (for the offsite backups), you could have a great free backup solution.
posted by cellojoe at 10:28 AM on June 17, 2011
I use CrashPlan as well as Segate's BlackArmor-branded version of Acronis TrueImage.
If you have a real crash you'll be much happier if you have a disk image as well as off-site backup. CrashPlan gives me a) continual backup and b) off-site backup. BlackArmor gives me an OS image that can be fully restored in a single step, but it's too slow to run daily.
posted by GuyZero at 10:32 AM on June 17, 2011
If you have a real crash you'll be much happier if you have a disk image as well as off-site backup. CrashPlan gives me a) continual backup and b) off-site backup. BlackArmor gives me an OS image that can be fully restored in a single step, but it's too slow to run daily.
posted by GuyZero at 10:32 AM on June 17, 2011
more info on CrashPlan:
Prices seem to be the same as BackBlaze... CrashPlan+ gets you unlimited online backup for one computer for "as low as $3/mo"... which means $5/mo or $50/yr or less.
Both CrashPlan and BackBlaze are great options. BackBlaze's software lets you choose what you don't want backed up, where with CrashPlan you choose what files to backup.
A review of both services (from a Mac users' POV, but that's mostly irrelevant).
Also, you'll want to find out how you can recover your data (you should know this before you need it). Some services will ship you a harddrive of flashdrive overnight (for a cost), which is nice.
posted by cellojoe at 10:35 AM on June 17, 2011
Prices seem to be the same as BackBlaze... CrashPlan+ gets you unlimited online backup for one computer for "as low as $3/mo"... which means $5/mo or $50/yr or less.
Both CrashPlan and BackBlaze are great options. BackBlaze's software lets you choose what you don't want backed up, where with CrashPlan you choose what files to backup.
A review of both services (from a Mac users' POV, but that's mostly irrelevant).
Also, you'll want to find out how you can recover your data (you should know this before you need it). Some services will ship you a harddrive of flashdrive overnight (for a cost), which is nice.
posted by cellojoe at 10:35 AM on June 17, 2011
I should note that Seagate gives a 5-computer license of the backup software with their NAS boxes, so for $120 you get both a 2GB NAS as backup storage but you get the software too, which is a pretty good deal.
posted by GuyZero at 10:49 AM on June 17, 2011
posted by GuyZero at 10:49 AM on June 17, 2011
Six months ago I would have come here to recommend Carbonite, but then I needed to restore my whole hard drive from Carbonite and it was a nightmare. Eventually, I got everything back (I think. I'm not really sure.) But even if it had worked correctly, it would have been a multi-week download, and it kept getting interrupted because the software would crash, then I'd have to start over, or my PC would have to be restarted, and then I'd have to start over...then it wouldn't recognize my login for some reason, I'd have to reinstall the Carbonite client....you can never truly know the efficacy of a cloud restore operation until you have to go through it, and then it's too late.
I bought a 1TB USB drive, a 1 TB internal drive, and I now backup everything every night to two mirrors using the free version of Syncback. When the house catches on fire I'm grabbing the USB drive on the way out the door. That's my plan and I'm comfortable with it.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 10:51 AM on June 17, 2011
I bought a 1TB USB drive, a 1 TB internal drive, and I now backup everything every night to two mirrors using the free version of Syncback. When the house catches on fire I'm grabbing the USB drive on the way out the door. That's my plan and I'm comfortable with it.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 10:51 AM on June 17, 2011
Also, I should mention, (sorry for all the separate answers) that the BlackArmor NAS boxes have a USB port on the back and they'll mirror themselves to another USB drive. So one of these days I'm going to set that up because hard drives fail. Not all at once (usually) but they will fail. So always keep data on more than one drive, preferably several.
posted by GuyZero at 10:56 AM on June 17, 2011
posted by GuyZero at 10:56 AM on June 17, 2011
For local backup synctoy from Microsoft is free and works well to my external Seagate drive.
posted by lungtaworld at 11:11 AM on June 17, 2011
posted by lungtaworld at 11:11 AM on June 17, 2011
I'm pretty happy with Genie Timeline. There's a free version.
posted by grouse at 11:15 AM on June 17, 2011
posted by grouse at 11:15 AM on June 17, 2011
Cobian Backup is a nice, open source tool for doing local backups as well as ones to remote servers. It can also makes it easy to do the sort of backup-related actions that would normally involve writing some kind of script - for example it can regularly connect to an FTP server and get or put particular files there - whilst changing the names to match today's date.
Don't overlook services such as Dropbox. If you have some files which you want to make available on Dropbox but still keep secure then I would recommend wrapping them in a TrueCrypt encrypted container.
posted by rongorongo at 11:52 AM on June 17, 2011
Don't overlook services such as Dropbox. If you have some files which you want to make available on Dropbox but still keep secure then I would recommend wrapping them in a TrueCrypt encrypted container.
posted by rongorongo at 11:52 AM on June 17, 2011
Daily, everything's synced up to a Lacie 5big NAS. Music, photos, documents, etc. are then duplicated to Amazon S3 and Strongspace, with photos additionally saved to Flickr. Once the kinks get worked out with Google Music, I'll likely start using that as well.
posted by evoque at 5:05 PM on June 17, 2011
posted by evoque at 5:05 PM on June 17, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by COD at 10:02 AM on June 17, 2011