backup software - file-by-file sets

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

This study was originally on a Living Room discussion:
What Happened to Genie Backup Manager?
https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=27713.0

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Agree on Backup4All, they make FBackup too, which I think is their other-branded free version, last I checked. Good solid company.  The difference is here: http://www.fbackup.com/compare/ FBackup is only servicable, you will probably want to go to a Backup4All version if you like in the long run. They also have Backup2all.

Agree on Cobian.  If I remember, he does one thing on incremental backups a bit differently, so read up in that case.  Issues may involve stuff like empty folders. (Which may not apply as much if you define full backup sets).

And don't ferget Easeus.  A Chinese company, yet surprisingly visible at times and now in the backup realm, with free versions, Giveawayoftheday, etc.  For straight file backup I would give them a try.  This one may have originally been image oriented, but it looks sensible on file-by-file sets.

If I remember, Syncback can work very well as a backup as well as synchronization, so it may be up there also.

Some of these even have active forums, and generally the free version is going to be quite hefty (Cobian is all free).

Caution, generally either do these backups in native format or easy-read like .zip.  If they are real proprietary, without a native alternative, I would avoid the company. When you have a terabyte backup disk, you can do your own occasional delete and compression is far less a need.

And I remember some other Chinese company was doing something with Genie's Backup software, I think that was Titan. It was all vague and mysterious a couple of years back, I would consider it a non-issue. (CORRECTION: this may be the GFI-Titan situation, and may be unrelated to Genie)

Since we have at least three-four excellent alternatives out there. Plus a dozen or two more for consideration, mostly shareware, yet I have tried to give the ones with the best "sense" above, all the companies but Easeus were given above by other posters.

Remember too, that some software that you think of as image (ugh, I consider a disk crash a warning to reinstall that Op System from scratch and only do images from shortly after Op Sys install) may also have decent file-by-file modes.  Paragon and Macrium (oops, these have file and folder mode only in paid) etc.  Or they may allow viewing and file-by-file restore from the image. However I think generally you will get a crisper feel from a program that was designed for backup sets.

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File-by-file set backup (not image, cloud possibilities not examined)

Easeus - http://www.todo-back...-backup-software.htm (free is hefty, webforum)
Cobian - http://www.educ.umu....ian/cobianbackup.htm  (100% free - webforum)

Free Version is not as strong.
Backup4ALL - http://www.backup4all.com/ (forum) - FBackup - http://www.fbackup.com/ (forum)
Syncback - http://www.2brightsp...re/freeware-hub.html (free lacks many features)

Add-ons: looking at reviews.  All basically free.

German companies
Personal Backup - http://personal-back...home.de/index-e.html (free, nice look, no forum)
Backup Maker - http://tinyurl.com/44ytevg  (free version= no comm use, forum)
ZDBackup - http://www.z-dbackup.com/backup.html (free=no comm use, no forum, confirm if translated)
Ace Backup - http://www.acebackup.com/   (fully free, web forum) (proprietary or "as is" native)

Cautions
Comodo - http://www.backup.comodo.com/ (beware of toolbars, gimmicks - has webforum)

If you are not already happy with a paid version, probably one of the 4 to 6x fully free are going to be fine, but which one ?  

Backup4all, especially on a special, however, should always be considered. Keep in mind that there are a number of competent $50 programs (not listed here). Backup4all is simply friendly and well-known in our neck of the woods, working with the shareware and freeware folks , and with specials and various pricing products.

These have not all been checked on issues like :

proprietary format (and super-large zip files)
compression and non-compression alternative
scheduling,
set flexibility,
backup media,
cloud possibility,
ease-of-use,
validation,
incremental-differential,
unicode,
restore capability
VSS - copying open files
system file capabilities
stability
warning messages, logs
network capability
support  
etc.  

Proprietary format, VSS, stability and validation are the most intrinsic to the safe backup process.

Do your due diligence on the features and program on which you focus.  You find something special, or a deal-breaker, share here.

On free programs that are limited you have to check also about file size limitations. e.g. DFIncBackup Home, a decent program not included, has a 8 Gig zip file size limit (formerly 2 Gigs). Also single huge zip files have sometimes caused headaches, (report: Comodo).  Nicest is the alternative to do native format or a zip-type that does not do huge files.

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Open Source - Areca gets by far the most mention with the group above

Areca - http://www.areca-backup.org/
JaBack - http://www.hiteksoft...e.com/jaba/index.htm
backupPC - http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
Bonkey - http://sites.google....ite/thebackupmonkey/ (cloud specialist)
Delta Copy - http://www.aboutmyip...MyXApp/DeltaCopy.jsp (Windows front end to rsync)

Open Source - Enterprise oriented
zmanda - http://amanda.zmanda.com/ (community-enterprise)
bacula - http://www.bacula.org/en/
NasBackup - http://www.nasbackup...om/wiki/Introduction

Portable
Toucan - http://portableapps....pps/utilities/toucan

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Forums for main group + Areca

Backup4all - http://www.backup4all.com/forum/
FBackup =- http://www.fbackup.com/forum/
Easeus - http://forum.easeus....m/viewforum.php?f=14
Cobian - http://www.cobiansoft.com/forum/
Syncback - http://2brightsparks.com/bb/
Ace Backup - http://www.acebit.co...um/viewforum.php?f=8
Backup Maker - https://www.ascomp.d...ndex.php?showforum=2
Comodo - https://forums.comod...modo-backup-cb-b5.0/
Areca - http://sourceforge.n...rojects/areca/forums

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Here is a suggestion.
A comparative review of Backup4All-FBackup .. Cobian .. Easeus .. Syncback.
(Maybe there is a good review out there, or at least a nice help, like from Gizmo.)

Or some similar list.

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Gizmo
Best Free Backup Program (2008-2011) - excellent comments
http://www.techsuppo...-free-backup-program
More free backup software
http://www.techsuppo...ndations-reviews.htm

Ghacks - Free Backup Software – Best Windows Backup Software Programs (2009)
http://www.ghacks.ne...p-software-programs/

Free Data Backup & Restore Software Programs Reviews
http://www.isoftware...re-programs-reviews/

FreewareGenius and DonationCoder I have not find any one super-spot yet.

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My summary view :

Freebies
Cobian - good yet unusual, almost quirky reputation, many really happy users, some give up
Easeus - worthy of a try at file-by-file, may be a bit feature slim on file-by-file

Areca - good techie try

The four German companies are little known, and seem to be generally high-quality and free.

Personal Backup
Backup Maker
ZDBackup
Ace Backup

$ 30-50
Backup4all - reliable, friendly, $ version with specials, many of us may have licenses

Skipping the other $50 paid programs, since they probably generally do not beat Backup4all.
One worthy paid competitor is Syncback Pro.

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FBackup - slim on free
Syncback - slim on free
Comodo - pass (not so much because of this software, but the Comodo tude)

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Shalom,
Steven Avery

[db90h]

And don't forget robocopy ... Built into Windows. Command line only. Great for backups as well as full recursive mirrors/copies/moves, lots of options.. more than you'd ever need. It doesn't back up registry keys (you can do that with RegEdit's export, but that's manual). However, it can back up whole registry HIVES by copying the backing hive files.

[barney]

Been using SyncbackSE, for coupla years ... the free version impressed me enough to buy it.  Tried several other apps that purport to image a drive, as opposed to a simple backup.  To date, I've been underwhelmed.  Have tried Easus, Cobian, Comodo, but reverted to SyncBackSE (paid) every time.

I'm also using Syncless 2.0 for in-use data syncing 'tween local and remote data files.  

Several of the progs you've mentioned would seem to merit further investigation, but for the most part, save for a reliable imaging system, I'm satisfied.  I've tried CloneZilla, but frankly, considering past experience, I'm loathe to test its restore capabilities.  Have versions of Paragon, and one (1) other that I cannot at the moment recall, for imaging, but the same thing applies ... I'm afraid to test the results.  My backup experience was born with DOS 2.1, and it was a valuable experience, indeed  .

[joiwind]

And a little-known but excellent prog (which I have recommended before) is : Uranium Backup - many features and versions.

[rjbull]

Uranium Backup

-joiwind (August 28, 2011, 03:43 AM)

The payware versions are moderately to seriously pricey.  Do you use one of them, or the free one?

[joiwind]

Uranium Backup

-joiwind (August 28, 2011, 03:43 AM)

The payware versions are moderately to seriously pricey.  Do you use one of them, or the free one?

-rjbull (August 28, 2011, 11:25 AM)

The free one ... 

[Stoic Joker]

The question for me, is will any of the above handle the Exchange Server transaction logs (replay/truncation requirements)? I've about had it with Symantec BackupExec and would dearly love to scour it from my world.

[Steven Avery]

Hi,

And a little-known but excellent prog (which I have recommended before) is : Uranium Backup - many features and versions.

-joiwind (August 28, 2011, 03:43 AM)

Yes, I saw that Uranium had some solid fans.  And looking at the features it looks like the extras in the paid versions are largely extras that would not apply to a home backup to an external disk (unlike FBackup and Syncback where the free is simply emaciated).  CNet has an interesting set of comments.

With the possible exception of the VSS issue, which is probably not really an issue to a standard data backup (an interesting question is when a note or PIM or regular application app really locks a file, does that affect our backups ? And is VSS the solution ? Any experts ?).  

The Uranium folks also have a remote access software called Supremo that looks at a glance interesting.

I'll likely add them to the front post, which is focusing on free backup software that is ready for primetime along with a couple of low-cost highly respected programs that are popular in the freeware-shareware worlds.

Has anybody succeeded in using some of these softwares in native "backup set" mode to do cloud backups ? Much of the cloud backup software is klunky or obstrusive, I like Drivehq because it works with a very nice, solid dual pane file manager interface ... afaik it still does not have the "backup sets" idea.  If folks have succeeded in using these softwares to cloud backups very successfully, please share away.

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Possibly worthy of a try on the simple level:

Back4sure - Ulrich Krebs .. also has a calender program .. freeware
http://www.ukrebs-software.de/
http://lifehacker.co...files-to-a-usb-drive

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For backup urls this is fairly recent and extensive, not much jumps out.
http://www.techplex....hronization-160.html

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And Zback looks like a nice add-on to the portable arena:
http://titan.fsb.hr/~dzorc/zback.html
http://www.techrepub...e-backup-system/1808

One of those sync-backup tools.

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Steven