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Could someone kindly help point me in the direction of a backup software solution for Windows which will accommodate my following requirements? I am desperate for someone's expertise on this.
- Will backup daily
- Will backup to an external desktop HDD
- Will backup an entire HDD so I can use it to restore the computer back to an identical condition
- Will make space for scheduled backups by deleting as few of the the oldest backups on the external media as possible
- Will backup incrementally to save wasting disk space
- Will easily indicate if there has been a problem with a scheduled backup, when visiting the software's home screen.
I have tried Norton Ghost, and found that when it runs out of space on the backup media, although with storage optimization enabled, it simply fails to run/save scheduled backups.
Many thanks in advance for allowing me to tap in to your wisdom!
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Will make space for scheduled backups by deleting as few of the the oldest backups on the external media as possible
That is not possible with incremental backups - by their very nature the first backup made is a full backup or mirror image and subsequent incremental backups/images are of files that have changed. Remove the first (full) backup and you are sunk.
Apart from that Acronis ......
- Will backup daily (on a shedule set through the software)
- Will backup to an external desktop HDD
- Will backup an entire HDD so I can use it to restore the computer back to an identical condition
- Will backup incrementally to save wasting disk space
- Will easily indicate if there has been a problem with a scheduled backup, when visiting the software's home screen. (Acronis can be set to verify the backup once it is made)
So, in reality, we all need enormous backup discs to hold just a few backups, no?
Well that depends on the amount of data you want to backup .....
I use Acronis to mirror (image) my OS partition on a weekly, scheduled incremental backup using a 150 Gb partition on another internal hard drive - I have 4 totalling just over 1.5 Tb. My OS partition is 50 Gb of which 27 Gb is used. That image is backed up weekly to two external drives so at any time I have 3 copies of the image.
Currently I have one full and 6 incrementals on the drive occupying some 66 Gb. When the partition is full I scrub it and start over. It is important to realise that defragmenting the drive will cause the incremental backup to approach that of a full backup. I run Diskeeper Pro which defragments the drive daily so from time to time the incremental backup is large.
As far as data is concerned I don't use Acronis - I use SynchbackSE to back up selected data drives on an hourly or weekly basis to other internal hard drives and weekly to an external hard drive. The size of these backups increases only at the rate that the original data grows - I have the software set to mirror the backup to the original data so files are replaced if they have been updated, deleted if no longer in their original location and new files copied over.
