Free Or Cheap Backup Software With Specific Functions

[sjohn]

Hi,

I've been using Driveimage XML for Windows Backups for some time. It get the job done. Incremental backup would be nice but since Windows is not my primary OS and I don't have a lot of files there, it works fine. There are two things that drive me crazy though:

1. On Vista/Windows 7, Driveimage forces me to deactivate UAC and restart every single time I want to backup.
2. Driveimage cannot restore to a partition smaller than the one it backed up.

Does anyone know of a backup utility, free or less than $20, That will allow me to do full image-based backups without either of these limitations? Incremental backups would be cool too, but this may be asking to much for the price range.

[ale870]

Hello,

look at this link:

http://linux.about.com/od/softbackup/Li ... utions.htm

http://www.bacula.org/en/

Even if they are linux solutions, some of them are cross-platform (and win too).
One suggestion: usually you cannot restore data in smaller drives because you made an entire image of the HDD. If you haven't many files, you can try to backup only files, and not drive image.
One thing more: if you need to backup drive image, you have two different methods:
1) backup all drive (has the limitation caused by hdd space: cannot restore in different hdd size)
2) backup only active sectors. It means you can restore it in different hdd size.

I hope this is a good starting point for you!

Cheers!

[bn]

Ale,
I think sJohn is a spammer, look at the link he posted at the bottom. He did the same in his other posts.

regards
Bernd

[FourthWorld]

He was subtle and the reply was useful, so I kept the post but ditched the sig link.

If he persists with spam his messages will be deleted, and eventually he'll be banned.

If you see spam in the future feel free to drop me a note at ambassador@fourthworld.com

[richmond62]

The cheapest Backup method requires no software at all!

Pop out and buy yourself an external hard-drive; then, every day at the end of the day's work, backup onto it;

This has never caused me any problems with 'funny' proprietary backup methods and/or encrypted files; and , once, when a
machine went "pop" I was able to bung my backup directly onto a new machine.

[ale870]

The cheapest Backup method requires no software at all!

Pop out and buy yourself an external hard-drive; then, every day at the end of the day's work, backup onto it;

This has never caused me any problems with 'funny' proprietary backup methods and/or encrypted files; and , once, when a
machine went "pop" I was able to bung my backup directly onto a new machine.

I partially agree with you, since I use that method for specific directory backup. BUt that method is not useful to backup and restore the whole operating system.
There are some backup programs (see the ones I suggested) that allow you to backup the whole HDD image, so in future, if HDD fails, you can simply mount another HDD and restore the image in a moment, without spending a day to reinstall OS, programs and data.