So I might be getting a External HDD for my Bday and was wondering if you guys have any suggestions for Windows (multi-platform would be good but I mostly use Windows.) data backup software? Preferably Open source but definitely free.
If you want to make a disk image I would suggest clonezilla. It can even do a bootable cd (or dvd) that restores your computer to exactly how it was when it was made.
That’s good I might do that too. But right now I really just want data backup. I have looked at Comodo Backup and Toucan.
Windows onboard tool:
Another suggestion, Microsoft SyncToy. Simple and gets the job done.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=c26efa36-98e0-4ee9-a7c5-98d0592d8c52&displaylang=en
I use Syncback. Free, and it works fine for me.
arexma: Windows XP’s sucks. I tried to recovery my uncle’s files that he backedup 1/2 the back was inaccessible!
Rich: if I tell it to sync a folder will it keep the dir structure of the dirs it’s contained in?
Pad: will check out Syncback.
cobian backup 10 is good if you’re using windows.
i tried comodo backup but kept getting BSOD’s. i still use their firewall, but the backup software is crap-ola.
edit, i also wanted to add that i have tried loads of different backup software, and cobian is by far the best.
I didn’t really like Cobian when I tried it. Syncback free is rather confusing.
I used synchback as well. Once setup its very powerful.
Unison File Synchronizer might be for you.
XPlatform, Free and “easy”:
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/download.html
It is awesome as well to keep datasets between notebook and desktop consistant.
how much space do you need?
for important files carbon copy is great.
it costs 50 $ a dear but has unlimited disk space.
The point about back up disks is what do you do when that once crashes as well?
I saw that happend few times.
Another very nice tool is dropbox.com
2GB are free, not much, but with inviting others you can up it to 10GB for free.
It has a great instant sync to you your online account and you can sync back
to as many pc/macs you want. also great to share files online. you control it
directly only from you desktop and what you share.
Just in case those might be interesting as well.
Dropboxs is my hero.
cekuhnen: really not sure how much I need right now.
arexma: Thanks I’ll see if I can get it open. (GTK’s installed and in PATH but it can’t find the dll)
How do you set syncback up?