Backup Software Recommendation

[Josebr]

Hi All,
I am currently using Acronis Cyber Protection which will expire late this year. I am wondering what you all use. I have the ongoing protection turned off, but I still wonder if it's slowing down programs. I just need a backup solution and not a program which monitors my computer.  People have complained in the Acronis forums about Acronis 2021 (Cyber Protection) slowing down their systems. Whereas they all did not have that program with Acronis 2020.  So what do you all use for backup software?

[JohnZeman]

I use multiple tools to backup my computer.

Macrium Reflect as a general backup/imaging program.

A couple robocopy CMD scripts that backs up specific files on my C: and D: drives.

And a StarTech HDD/SSD standalone dock which allows me to duplicate hard drives amongst other things.

I tend to use the last one more often for my C: SSD drive because it's so much faster.  Yesterday I used Macrium Reflect to do a full image of my 500GB SSD C: drive and it took 6 hours for it to do the full image.

With the StarTech dock I can (and do) occasionally duplicate that same C: SSD drive to a spare 500GB SSD, and it does so in about 40 minutes.  That gives me a working spare boot drive.

[Mario]

I have no idea what "Acronis Protection" does. Sounds to me a bit like the feature creep other software species introduced after the basic functionality was there and stable, to get people to buy upgrades. Like DVD burning software suddenly having features to play movies and audio files or backup software including virus checkers or anti-virus software doing all kinds of system checks and monitoring and whatnot...ugh.

I've used Acronis for a few years (and just a backup software) but I switched to Macrium Reflect many years ago when TrueImage became unreliable and crashy for some versions. Never looked back.
I use Macrium Reflect to backup to external hard disks (one disk per week, one extra disk for monthly backups) and to the local folders managed by my cloud storage provider.
Using the strong encryption in Reflect makes sure that none of my data ever leaves my PC unencrypted (the cloud storage only sees encrypted data - important for privacy and GDPR-compliance when using US-based cloud providers like Google or Microsoft).

Reflect is easy to use, works virtually unnoticeable in the background, has good reporting end easy features to verify a backup.
I have two licenses and use it on two PC's every day. Restoring individual files is easy by mounting a backup as a disk and then copying the files in Windows Explorer.
Replacing an entire disk is as easy, because Macrium allows you to boot your PC from an USB stick and then restore the system disk.

I also use plain Windows RoboCopy to copy selected tree branches and Git repositories to a encrypted volume which is mirrored into the cloud.

My demands on backup are of course higher than for the average user 

[sinus]

I use Macrium Reflect and find this software very good.

[Jingo]

Same here.. Macrium Reflect for my main automated daily/weekly backup of all drives... great software... easy restore testing too!

Syncbackpro used to mirror some folders and ensure they are backed up upon changes every few hours... then included in the daily backups from Macrium.

I also clone my boot drive every month to be sure I can easily get back up and running with nearly the same software intact in a matter of minutes.. be sure you have an extra SSD or M2 drive on hand in case the hardware is what fails!

[Stefanjan]

I use Macrium Reflect paid version for daily backups to external drives.

Resilio sync on my desktop, laptop, table, phone and Synology Nas for real time synchronisation.

Resilio sync also backs up from Nas to attached external drive.

[BanjoTom]

Macrium Reflect to external USB drives.  And it's saved me several times! 

[thrinn]

I also use Macrium Reflect for backup. Partly to external hard drive, additionally to some cloud storage.

[jch2103]

Macrium Reflect here, too.

[StanRohrer]

I learned about Macrium Reflect in these forums years ago. The free version is sufficient for me. Three external drives rotate through my media rated fire vault. I just updated to 8TB externals so can keep multiple full PC images on each drive.

[Josebr]

Wow! Excellent! When that many people recommend a product, I listen. I will be purchasing Macrium Reflect and not resub scribing to Acronis. Thank You All!!!!

[Darius1968]

For those of you, that use Macrium Reflect: 
I just did a differential backup, that was about 260 GB, which took roughly, 1 hr. 30 min., at an average write-speed:  1.3 Gb/s  (ranging from:  800 Mb/s-1.6 Gb/s).  This should  have taken, maybe, 1/4 of the time.  What are the times, you guys are experiencing?  I'm backing-up a 1TB SSD, to a 4TB HD (7200 rpm., I think), over USB 3.0 
Thanks, for any, and all input! 

[Carlo Didier]

For those of you, that use Macrium Reflect: 
I just did a differential backup, that was about 260 GB, which took roughly, 1 hr. 30 min., at an average write-speed:  1.3 Gb/s  (ranging from:  800 Mb/s-1.6 Gb/s).  This should  have taken, maybe, 1/4 of the time.  What are the times, you guys are experiencing?  I'm backing-up a 1TB SSD, to a 4TB HD (7200 rpm., I think), over USB 3.0 
Thanks, for any, and all input!

Just curious: why differential backups instead of incremental? Differential usually only makes sense if you need very fast restores.

[Mario]

Differential also reduce the risk of data loss.
If your backup consists of 10 sets (one day each) and on set becomes damaged, you lose the backup of the past 10 days.
If your backup consists of 10 differential sets (one day each) and one becomes corrupted, you lose only that day.

But differential sets are much larger than incremental sets and become bigger with each backup. And differential sets are also much slower.
It's always a trade-off between safety and disk space consumption and speed.

I do differential backups for my SSDs (most important data) and incrementals for my RAID spinning disk (volume data like images). Since the spinning disks are in a mirror RAID, losing one disk will not cause immediate damage. If a disk fails, I will do a quick full backup and then replace the disk and let the RAID controller rebuild the array. If this fails, I restore the last backup.

[sinus]

This is very interesting, Mario.

If you are not an expert, some options (also in Macrium) can make you confused.
And like you always says, the more options, the more confused users are - like me. 

And at least, a user like me, does finally something, without knowing exactly, what I am doing.
Until now I have backuped all with incremantal.

But I have to think about again ... and there are also some other options inside Macrium, not only differential or incrementa. Hence it is confusing and I have to read and check again, carefully.

Thanks.

[Mario]

Macrium offers Full, Incremental and Differential when you schedule a backup.
I think it's well explained in their documentation, but I work with backup software for a looong time and hence I already know what's what.

Incremental backups all changed sectors since last incremental backup.
Differential backups all changed sectors since last full backup.

This means if you change 10GB per day, the incremental backup will be 10GB per day. 70 GB per week.

The differential will be 10GB on the first day, 20GB on the second day, 30GB on the third day etc. 280 GB per week. And a much longer runtime per backup of course.
In theory. There is compression and some smartness in Reflect so the actual size will be less.

As I said, a trade-off between safety and convenience. If you make only 5 incrementals per full backup, you will lose a week if one file becomes damaged.
If you take diffs, you will loose more than one day only if the full backup becomes damaged. Then you lose all 5 days.

In the end, an incremental backup is much better than no backup. And many users don't do any backup at all 

And, backing up your data costs money. Whether you invest into Reflect and multiple external hard disks or a NAS (many users use a NAS but don't backup it ever!).
Or if you use cloud space for backup (which is a good idea, as a second or third level backup).

My five seat Office 365 license (~70€ per year) includes 5 x 1TB of cloud storage (1TB per user). Which is plenty for my purposes.

[axel.hennig]

I use https://restic.net/ and https://kopia.io/

And: You don't have to think about full, incremental or differential backup, because everything is a full backup, but without using that much space on your backup drive due to deduplication and compression (kopia only).

[Jingo]

For those of you, that use Macrium Reflect: 
I just did a differential backup, that was about 260 GB, which took roughly, 1 hr. 30 min., at an average write-speed:  1.3 Gb/s  (ranging from:  800 Mb/s-1.6 Gb/s).  This should  have taken, maybe, 1/4 of the time.  What are the times, you guys are experiencing?  I'm backing-up a 1TB SSD, to a 4TB HD (7200 rpm., I think), over USB 3.0 
Thanks, for any, and all input! 

Don't forget that the system will also spend lots of time comparing your current files against your FULL BACKUP to determine what to include in the differential.... so, you can't just calculate R/W speeds against the total time spent.

I'm pretty sure your speeds are because of the USB 3.0 connection... Just checked my backup from last night - 466GB backup   write-speed: 2.2GB/s  Drives: internal 7200 to internal 7200 (different physical media of course) - total time: 38 min 38 secs.   

I have all my differentials set to backup in the middle of the night about 3 hrs apart from each other... so, if it takes longer, I'm not concerned.. but your write speeds aren't that bad.

The other big benefit of differentials... you can easily grab a single file from anywhere in the list of differentials!  This has saved me MANY  times.... 

So, if you have 20 days of differentials.... and on day 11 you overwrite or delete a file you need, just open up differential 1-10 and restore that single file...  I keep 30 days of differentials for my client and other important data for this exact reason.  My photo drives are set for a shorter differential - 10 days because the files just don't change that often so I'm less likely to overwrite something.  Space is so cheap these days and my backups are all done overnight and rather quickly - that this system works great for me.

[mopperle]

Using Veritas System Recovery Desktop Edition since many years and did often succesful restores including 2x BMR.
You pay for the license once and a yearly maintenance fee (~11 Euro) which gives you support and access to all updates/upgrades. No need to buy any upgrades in case of a new version.

[Carlo Didier]

The other big benefit of differentials... you can easily grab a single file from anywhere in the list of differentials!  This has saved me MANY  times.... 

Same thing for incrementals, while using less space on your backup media.
There's advantages and disadvantages to both, as Mario has explained well.

[rienvanham]

For ultrafast realtime backup use Bvckup 2 Pro. It has also file versioning.

[Jingo]

The other big benefit of differentials... you can easily grab a single file from anywhere in the list of differentials!  This has saved me MANY  times.... 

Same thing for incrementals, while using less space on your backup media.
There's advantages and disadvantages to both, as Mario has explained well.

True.. incrementals are good for times when you need to pull a single file back as well.  Differentials are good for pulling many files back without having to go into multiple backups to grab them all (if that makes sense?). 

[Mario]

to go into multiple backups to grab them all (if that makes sense?). 

This is no a problem anymore these days. Reflect and other software allows you to pull any file/folder from any time span covered by the backup.
You just mount the backup of that day (incremental or not) as a disk and then copy over what you need in Windows Explorer. Very simple.

[Carlo Didier]

to go into multiple backups to grab them all (if that makes sense?). 

This is no a problem anymore these days. Reflect and other software allows you to pull any file/folder from any time span covered by the backup.
You just mount the backup of that day (incremental or not) as a disk and then copy over what you need in Windows Explorer. Very simple.

Exactly. In modern backup software, to restore, you simply select a date (and time if applicable) and it presents a virtual view of your backup at that moment in time.
Whether there are full, differential or incremental backups behind that view doesn't matter.

[sinus]

Sorry to ask a stupid question, but while we're at it anyway... 

Differential and incremental, I think, I have it now understood.

But what puzzled me always:
it does not matter, differential or incremental, but to start the whole thing, the very first backup has to be a full backup?!

Is that correct, if not, I have to read really much more about this!!! 

[Mario]

But what puzzled me always:
it does not matter, differential or incremental, but to start the whole thing, the very first backup has to be a full backup?!
Is that correct, if not, I have to read really much more about this!!! 

Yes. The first backup is the base on which the incremental / differential backups are built.

When you work with Reflect, you can control how often Reflect creates a full backup, how long it retains differential/incremental backups etc.
The best settings for you depend on how large your backup disks are, how much data you change every day (1 GB or 20 GB per day etc.).

[sinus]

But what puzzled me always:
it does not matter, differential or incremental, but to start the whole thing, the very first backup has to be a full backup?!
Is that correct, if not, I have to read really much more about this!!! 

Yes. The first backup is the base on which the incremental / differential backups are built.

When you work with Reflect, you can control how often Reflect creates a full backup, how long it retains differential/incremental backups etc.
The best settings for you depend on how large your backup disks are, how much data you change every day (1 GB or 20 GB per day etc.).

Thanks a lot, Mario!!!
You have a gift for making difficult things simple.
It's strange, sometimes I understand quite a lot, but from my point of view I get stuck on a simple question.

But the question is so simple, apparently, that I can't find an answer anywhere.
But if you're building a house and you know everything about windows, glass, doors, roof tiles, heaters, that's great. But if you haven't understood why and how to build the foundation, then you can ask yourself how much your knowledge is worth.

You can also see your talent in all your help documentation. I think it is unique, very good, profound, contains basic information, but also highly complicated detailed questions/answers.

Of course, there is (almost) always room for improvement (what is perfect?), but I think you do an outstanding job in everything I read and follow. And this since years!

Thank you for that!

[Mario]

Glad to be helpful 

[PandDLong]

I wish I had found this earlier. 

I was looking for a backup solution and went with Ashampoo Backup Pro.  I liked that it supported seamless backup to a wide variety of public cloud.  I haven't put it into use yet but now I feel compelled to look at Macrium Reflect as it seems well recommended in this group.   (I don't think it even showed up on any of my "backup software reviews" searches.

Michael

[digedag]

System backups:
after major changes manually with ACRONIS True Image
the first as full backup, then differential

File backups:
Home server (Acer EasyStore H341 with 4x 2 TB internal and 2x 4 TB external) with Windows Home Server v1 (WHS). No internet access from outside, only as internal file server for music and movies (Kodi with LibreELEC) and of course and primarily for backups.

Lights Out Add-In (https://www.green-it-software.com/4532/lights-out-1-6-1-update-released/) wakes up the WHS every night at 1:00 am. Three minutes later all clients are woken up by the WHS and backed up automatically. The automatic backup management ensures that there is always enough memory. After the backup has been completed, the clients are put to sleep and the WHS is also shut down again. From the backups, a (security) backup is made once a month to an (external) SATA disk.

Admittedly, WHS v1 is an outdated system, but works for years (almost) without my intervention. The internal disks are mirrored, now and then one is exchanged. I always have two new ones in the cabinet. All restores so far smoothly.

Regards and good luck.
Bernhard

[Tveloso]

You can also see your talent in all your help documentation. I think it is unique, very good, profound, contains basic information, but also highly complicated detailed questions/answers.

Of course, there is (almost) always room for improvement (what is perfect?), but I think you do an outstanding job in everything I read and follow. And this since years!

Thank you for that!

+1

I have learned so much from reading this forum, and the IMatch Help System.  And here, I'm often educated on subjects even outside of what IMatch covers, thanks to the knowledgeable folks here, and especially Mario's excellent explanations.  Thank you Mario.

[busbahnhof]

HardlinkBackup by lupinho.net

- makes incremental backups
- uses hardlinks for already backuped files (keeps the backup volume small)
- backuped files are directly accessible through Windows Explorer (no special software needed)
- Already was a life saver when by accident all my pictures (and tons of other data) got formatted by accident
- Available in English, German, French, Spanish (though homepage is only in German)

[Mario]

This is a file-based backup system I believe?
Not using Windows volume shadow copies to transfer only modified sectors into the backup, right?

Which is quite a difference to Reflect and TrueImage, which only backup modified sectors, not entire files.
Opening and closing a 20 GB IMatch database will add maybe 5MB to a Reflect/TrueImage backup for that day, but it will add 20GB to a file-based backup.

[busbahnhof]

File-based backup: Yes.
It only copies modified files. For unmodified files, it uses hardlinks to the original ones.

With True Image or Reflect, you still need this software in any way to restore the backup. Right? And what happens if one modified sector of a file gets broken? Can I still restore the whole file from all the snippets?

So each system has it pro's and con's. And everybody has to decide, which pro's are worth it to take the con's at the same time.

[Mario]

With True Image or Reflect, you still need this software in any way to restore the backup.

Correct. But when I would drop Reflect, I would recreate new backups with whatever software I then use.
I did this when dumping TrueImage years ago.
Reflect also allows me to create boot mediums which allow me to boot my computer when the boot disk becomes corrupted. And then restore the image of the boot disk back, even when I have installed a new disk or a bigger disk. VERY useful, used that two times already to recover.

And what happens if one modified sector of a file gets broken? Can I still restore the whole file from all the snippets?

Sure. As long as you have another backup set of that file you can restore the file from any point in time covered by backups. You may loose the changes of one day, though.
I usually keep daily backups for several weeks, monthly backups for maybe a year etc. This means I can restore any file from any day several weeks back, or in steps of a months, several month back.

My backups are about 2.5 TB (full backup) and an average between 5 and 10 GB per day. The daily backup takes about 3 - 10 minutes, depending on how busy I was that day. It runs in the background and the Windows volume shadow functionality allows Reflect to backup open files, which is important for databases and other files always kept open by services.

Since I'm a developer, it is not unusual that I make changes to thousands of even tens of thousands of files per day.
A file-based backup for this would take a long time and a massive amount of disk storage.
When I change 5 IMatch databases a day, Reflect may backup 50 or 100 MB (only changed sectors), while full-file backup would need the full 50 GB of the database files - per day.

Since volumne shadow copying is available, file-based backups are only a 3rd way for me (using Windows Robocopy to version and mirror certain folders to my encrypted cloud space for a 3rd-level backup).

But as I always say: "Whatever works for you is good". If your daily backup volume is manageable and file-based backup works for you - excellent.
File-based backups were used for many, many years successfully. Volume shadow copying is just another development on top of that. It just works much better for me, since I run multiple backups per day on different external and cloud media.

I recall the German c't running some articles on file-based backup software with hard-liking and stuff a while ago.

[Josebr]

Just wanted to update the community. I ditched Acronis and switched over to Marcium Reflect. In some ways it's simpler to use than Acronis. I thank you all for your recommendation of Marcrium Reflect for backups.

[Jingo]

Just wanted to update the community. I ditched Acronis and switched over to Marcium Reflect. In some ways it's simpler to use than Acronis. I thank you all for your recommendation of Marcrium Reflect for backups.

Thx for the update... I had done the same a few years back with positive results!

[Mario]

I'm just running my monthly backup in the background, using Reflect and an 4 TB external disk.

[rienvanham]

I also did a switch from Easus ToDo to Macrium Reflect. Thanks for the recommendation!

[bytestream]

For what it's worth... I haven't seen Veeam mentioned yet.  I've been using it (along with two other backup programs--yes, I'm paranoid) for a few years and never had any issues.  That includes restoring individual files and restoring the whole PC to a new drive.

There is a free version for personal use.  You can do full disk image backups (and create a bootable ISO file for full-disk restores) or simple file/folder backups.

When restoring individual files, you "mount" the backup image as a virtual folder and then just browse and pick whichever files you need (nice and simple).

It's also very fast on my network, copying out to NAS/SMB shares.  Nice stuff.  If you are familiar with  Macrium Reflect or EaseUs ToDo, it should feel familiar.  Just my two cents.

[Mario]

ADMIN: Is is not very wise when your first post ever in this community (you registered today) is something that reads suspiciously like an ad.