New backup software for my computer

May 6, 2013 7:27 AM

I'm looking for a backup program that is as fuss-free as possible. It should keep (only) one full backup plus the current backup (every week or two), do incremental backups automatically in between, and automatically run for incremental backups when the drive is attached instead of at preset times. It should be very easy to pause, and easily allow me to choose what to include or exclude. I'd like it to work on multiple computers (2 or 3). Free isn't necessary, but a reasonable-length free trial is.

I have a laptop which is my primary computer. I bring it to and from work daily. I have a NAS at home which I want to back up my computer regularly. It came with some free backup software (Memeo), which doesn't quite do what I need.

The software does keep track of the changed files and backs those up when the drive is attached, but no matter how often I suspend backing up, it unsuspends itself, it keeps only one full backup (which never gets purged of deleted files until the drive is full, so I have all sorts of useless crap on there), and I cannot exclude folders. I do not want the full version of this software.

posted by jeather to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Acronis True Image-- it's never let me down in about 8 years of use, both professionally and personally and has made me look like a god on a number of occasions.

It'll let you create the backup scheme you mention, they've got it set to 6 months as their basic version of it, but you can customise it down to only a week if storage is an issue, they call it Version Chaining.

There's not a exact mode for 'run this backup when I plug in the drive' but there is an option to 'run missed backup when current device is attached' which generally makes more sense. So just schedule your removable drive to backup on a schedule that wouldn't overwhelm if it was left plugged in, and it should meet your unplugged needs too.

For what it's worth, keep backups older then a week or two if it's important to you, most times, in my experience, it's not failed hard drives or corrupt files that make the backups so valuable, it's for when a user saved over a periodic report and only noticed it a month or three late-- being able to be step back in time to recover that earlier version is essentially magic. Users fail more then hard drive platters.
posted by Static Vagabond at 8:54 AM on May 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

I use Macrium Reflect which has been rock solid and does both incremental and differential backups in the paid version.
posted by plinth at 1:14 PM on May 6, 2013

I've been using Syncbak from http://www.2brightsparks.com for years and think they're great. It can be as simple or complex as you wish. There's an "easy" mode that hides a lot of the options and they have a fair free trial.

If you wanted an online backup service, I'd go for Backblaze.
posted by reddot at 4:04 PM on May 6, 2013

Brute force method: build a script with robocopy.

The way I have mine set up is that robocopy copies new and newer versions of files that exist in the destination folder.

Then on the server side, I have a script that copies the whole hierarchy whenever it notices a change, via hard links, to generations of older and older "snapshots" of the filesystem. Because the vast majority of data hasn't changed, each snapshot costs almost nothing in disk space.

The problem with some kinds of backup paradigms is that you can be backing up bad data, overwiritng the good. (Like in the case of a virus or malware infection, or deleted/corrupted files.) It makes no sense to have a perfectly up to date backup of files that have been trashed.
posted by gjc at 5:16 PM on May 6, 2013