PC Backup in Win 7

What has been readers experience using Microsoft Win 7 backup?  Any expectations for this feature when Win 10'is released?  Using Acronis 2015 and for the second time it appears to be corrupted. Dealing with them has been frustrating.  Appreciate any insights.  (My files are just  too big to use a cloud backup.)

just use Microsoft's Sync Toy for backup in Win 7. It doesn't do any weird compression stuff and recovering a file is as simple as copying it from the backup volume. i do not believe in backup schemes that puts files in a proprietary compressed mode that only their software can read. Acronis has been deeply flawed for years now. The last version that worked relatively well is 2010. I abandoned it for cloning and backup a long time ago. Macrium Reflect is free and a vastly superior clone tool to Acronis and MS SyncToy works well for a simple backup that can be easily restored.

So many tools.. I am going to give Macrium Reflect a try with sinology as a target

I use Retrospect in Win 7 64-bit. It's been efficient & reliable. I like using backup-specific software because their success depends on good error-checking and reliability.

http://www.retrospect.com/en/blog/2015/ ... 15_release

pablo wrote:What has been readers experience using Microsoft Win 7 backup?  Any expectations for this feature when Win 10'is released?  Using Acronis 2015 and for the second time it appears to be corrupted. Dealing with them has been frustrating.  Appreciate any insights.  (My files are just  too big to use a cloud backup.)

The problem with it and any backup program that uses a proprietary compression scheme is that it alters your files as it is backing up with its compression scheme.  Restoring the backup then requires decompression.  The backup can't be used without first doing a restore.  In my opinion, you are better off using a backup that is immediately usable and does not require a time consuming and potentially file harming decompression.  Windows backup uses such compression.  Microsoft's SyncToy makes a copy of the files without using any compression so you can simply start using the backup volume should something happen to your primary.

Another vote for MS SyncToy. It's relatively simple and it works. An unfortunate name-choice that suggests "playing" or "game." In reality it's a worthy product.

Hi,

When I do backups I just copy (drag) the files on the computer to a folder in my external drive. I only have two folders to drag over. "Jeff" has all of my files for Word, Excel, etc. and "Photos" (has lots of subfolders) has all of my photographs. Never had a problem.

I start the copy before going to bed and when I get up, it's done.

Have Fun,
Jeff

Jeff, I think people are talking about backing up the operating system drive here and not data drives. At least, that's how I understand it.

I have been a user of Acronis True Image for many years and have never had any problems or issues with it. It has saved my butt many times now.

Tim Zurowski wrote:Jeff, I think people are talking about backing up the operating system drive here and not data drives. At least, that's how I understand it.

I have been a user of Acronis True Image for many years and have never had any problems or issues with it. It has saved my butt many times now.

No, backing up an OS drive will never allow you to restore a failed OS drive completely.  The only way to backup an OS drive so that you can ever use the backup is to do a clone, which you are presumably doing with Acronis.  We were talking about backing up data.

Acronis is pretty flakey though and if you want to get out from under that very flakey software that boots into DOS mode during a OS clone, with all sorts of weird licensing snafus everytime they upgrade, get the totally free and far superior Macrium Reflect for cloning your OS drive.

I've heard that the backup software provided with Windows is pretty good, actually. I use the Synctoy approach for my data drives, but the windows stuff I backup with the provided windows tool. I've never done a restore though. But even if it doesn't work, I can still re-install windows and apps, which is not a big deal.

E.J. Peiker wrote:just use Microsoft's Sync Toy for backup in Win 7.  It doesn't do any weird compression stuff and recovering a file is as simple as copying it from the backup volume.  i do not believe in backup schemes that puts files in a proprietary compressed mode that only their software can read.  Acronis has been deeply flawed for years now.  The last version that worked relatively well is 2010.  I abandoned it for cloning and backup a long time ago.  Macrium Reflect is free and a vastly superior clone tool to Acronis and MS SyncToy works well for a simple backup that can be easily restored.

EJ,how or what do I back up in windows using Sync Toy?
I usually do a windows back up but not really sure about what I am doing.
I do use Sync Toy to back up my photos.

thanks
steve

S. Davis wrote:

E.J. Peiker wrote:just use Microsoft's Sync Toy for backup in Win 7.  It doesn't do any weird compression stuff and recovering a file is as simple as copying it from the backup volume.  i do not believe in backup schemes that puts files in a proprietary compressed mode that only their software can read.  Acronis has been deeply flawed for years now.  The last version that worked relatively well is 2010.  I abandoned it for cloning and backup a long time ago.  Macrium Reflect is free and a vastly superior clone tool to Acronis and MS SyncToy works well for a simple backup that can be easily restored.

EJ,how or what do I back up in windows using Sync Toy?
I usually do a windows back up but not really sure about what I am doing.
I do use Sync Toy to back up my photos.

thanks
steve

I use SyncToy across multiple backup drives to backup my data drives daily and also use it to manually execute additional backups during the day if I have done a significant amount of work.  If I have a corrupted file or accidentally delete something or whatever I can immediately copy a godd version of the file back from one of the backup drives without having to go through a restore procedure that you would have to go through from Windows backup or virtuallya ll other backup software that uses proprietary compression.  If I have a failure of a data drive, I can immediately switch over and start using one of my backup drives without a long and time consuming restore.

For my system and program drive (I call it my OS drive), I have Macrium Reflect trigger an automatic clone twice a week.  In the event of a failure, I can immediately boot off of the clone and be back up and running in a minute.

E.J. Peiker wrote:No, backing up an OS drive will never allow you to restore a failed OS drive completely.  The only way to backup an OS drive so that you can ever use the backup is to do a clone, which you are presumably doing with Acronis.  We were talking about backing up data.

Acronis is pretty flakey though and if you want to get out from under that very flakey software that boots into DOS mode during a OS clone, with all sorts of weird licensing snafus everytime they upgrade, get the totally free and far superior Macrium Reflect for cloning your OS drive.

Call it what you want, but Acronis calls it "backup" and no mention of the word "clone". Maybe it is a clone, but in Acronis terms it is called a backup of the OS. It is super easy to recover in my uses. Just install the bootable disk to start the program and reinstall the system. Takes no time at all. I have had no need for anything else.

I do not use any software at all for data backup. I do that the old fashioned way . . . . . manually to four drives.

I have tested a few pieces of backup SW over the last few weeks... I am really happy Macrium Reflect, it clones well, and backup/restores have been flawless. And I do mean full, incremental and differential backups. I used to run production systems back in the day so I am anal about backup.

I was doing a trial but I will be purchasing a 4 pack....

Thanks EJ !

Lou

I used Macrium Reflect Free for the first time last night to clone the OS of Win 8.1 on a Lenovo laptop last night. Worked extremely well! Two things surprised me in a good way. First was that the clone to a thumb drive never left the Windows environment i.e. never shut down and went into DOS as Acronis 2010 does, which I use to use on Win 7. (BTW you can't use Acronis 2010 to clone a drive on Win 8-8.1 and I assume Win 10) Second the clone was extremely fast which was a pleasant surprise compared with my previous cloning experiences. Not having to shut down and go into DOS to do the cloning and then restart Windows certainly speeds up the process. Thanks for recommending Macrium Reflect Free    Now if I could only get the Lenovo working properly, I keep getting "Internal Power Errors". Have to wait till tomorrow to call Lenovo as all the solutions I've found on the internet haven't worked.

signgrap wrote:I used Macrium Reflect Free for the first time last night to clone the OS of Win 8.1 on a Lenovo laptop last night. Worked extremely well! Two things surprised me in a good way. First was that the clone to a thumb drive never left the Windows environment i.e. never shut down and went into DOS as Acronis 2010 does, which I use to use on Win 7. (BTW you can't use Acronis 2010 to clone a drive on Win 8-8.1 and I assume Win 10) Second the clone was extremely fast which was a pleasant surprise compared with my previous cloning experiences. Not having to shut down and go into DOS to do the cloning and then restart Windows certainly speeds up the process. Thanks for recommending Macrium Reflect Free    Now if I could only get the Lenovo working properly, I keep getting "Internal Power Errors". Have to wait till tomorrow to call Lenovo as all the solutions I've found on the internet haven't worked.

Yup, exactly my experience and why I switched. Plus it doesn't have all of the licensing upgrade issues every time they come out with a new version like Acronis which often required a call to some person that doesn't even understand the software, or English for that matter.  Acronis is 1990's technology rehashed every year that is expensive compared to Macrium which is free.

Can someone post a link to the Macrium Reflect "Free" version. I am at the Macrium site now and can find no mention of a "free" version? All I can find is a trial version that is good for only 30 days, but the ReDeploy functionality to restore images to dissimilar hardware is not included.

Thanks Dick . . . . . I was unable to find that from their home page ??

Okay, I have downloaded and installed the "free" version of Macrium. Here's where I am somewhat unclear; the differences between a "clone" and an "image". What I have always been doing with Acronis is making an image of my OS and then saving it on two other drives in my PC. I have never had an OS drive fail, but for various reasons have needed to restore an image of my OS. This has worked very well for me and until now, never really saw any need to change this.

So if I understand this correctly, a clone is a full size copy of your system (whether it be OS or data) to another drive. The advantage of this would be cloning your OS to another drive and then quickly being able to pull out the old drive and swap it for the new cloned drive and be up and running again. For me, I see no advantage for this as I would have to fork out money for another drive, and I find restoring an image pretty much just as easy and quick. Using a DVD for bootable media it usually takes about 20 minutes to restore an OS image for me.

So am I missing something here? Why would making a clone be any better or easier than having backup images? i can't afford to have spare drives sitting around and would rather just buy one in the unlikely event that I needed to replace it. Having an image seems just as convenient to me, and less costly.

Tim Zurowski wrote:Thanks Dick . . . . . I was unable to find that from their home page ?

I had the same problem as they make it difficult to find on their website. I ended up googling Macrium Reflect Free and it takes you right to the page. This happens a lot with apps when the company also sell a premium version.