best back-up software; Acronis, FD-ISR or

Hi there,

I', not sure whether I be here in the right section, however...
I'm looking for the BEST back-up software at the moment available. I read the First Defense-ISR and Paragon problems and I,m not a fan of vituarlisation (Returnil) either. So what is left?? Acronis True Image ??
My system will be:
Acer aspire 8940G laptop with Win 7 ultimate 64.
Any advise will be very much appreciated.
Thanks,

True North

 

Based on feedback I've read, solid choices appear to be Shadow Protect and Terabyte - depending on need and compatibility.

 

I would suggest Shadow Protect. I have been using it for about a year and its been flawless. Its very well thought of by members of this forum which is one of the reasons I went with it.

 

ShadowProtect is a good choice, as is Drive Snapshot. But I very much like Active @ Disk Image. It is very easy to use, offers the ability to image more than one partition inside a single file, and offers the moist complete bootable rescue software I've found; their WinPE can be used for more than just backup and restoring.

 

It depends on how big what you want to backup is, and how frequently you want to do it, but Active@ Disk Image does not offer the option of differential backups which could be a serious handicap (or not) depending on your requirements.

 

Thank you all.
I read the other thread as well. Quite interesting how many people are interested in this topic. Thanks again.

True north

 

That is true. Good point. However, I never use differential backups. I only create full backups. Also, worth mentioning is that Macrium Reflect and Active @ Disk Image do not currently restore to dynamic disks.

 

FD-ISR is not strictly speaking a 'back up' software - it's an 'instant restore' software. If you think of it more akin to Rollback Rx/ EasyFix in that it allows you to play with set ups/ configurations and then go back to baseline. It doesn't image the disc and doesn't have the capacity to do a bare metal restore (i.e. if your hard drive goes kaput - you've had it). Plus it is currently not available in it's classic form - so scratch that one.
What you need for back up software very much depends on your requirements: i.e. do you need to keep a separate back up of data, photos, music or do you want an all-in-one imaging tool.
The very least you will need is software to produce an image of your system/ OS hard drive. Softwares for imaging are myriad and range from good, basic but free : i.e. Macrium Reflect, DriveImageXML, Clonezilla, to solid but not free: Terabyte Image for Windows/ Image for DOS, Paragon, Drive Snapshot. Some of these image within Windows, others require you boot from a USB stick or CD-ROM to image. There are also expensive software that may image faster, offer continuous incremental back ups or more bells & whistles - step forward: Shadow Protect, Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image.
My personal opinion is that Shadow Protect is the best of the imaging tools after using many others because a) it is the fastest at imaging on my system b) allows me to perform continuous incrementals.
However, like all software YMMV.
If you are using Windows 7 there is a perfectly serviceable full disc back up/ imaging tool built in to Windows 7 - the only problems are it produces large images and it is slooow - but, hey, it's free and it works.
If you are looking to back up specific files/ folders some of the 'all-in-ones' will cover this e.g. Norton Ghost, Acronis TI & some flavours of Paragon or you may decide to use a specialist tool for this e.g. (for free) GFI BackUp 2009, Cobian Back Up or (paid) EMC Retrospect et al.
Are you planning to back up to your existing Hard Drive in the laptop or will you be using a removable drive? - i.e. if you are using your existing Laptop HD you are not going to want myriad images 'eating up' your precious HD space. In this case you may be best served by using something like Macrium Reflect to produce one or two HD 'clean' images plus an Instant sytem restore software such as Rollback Rx.
If you are using an external HD back up - my vote would be for Shadow Protect or Image for Windows plus separate back ups for 'mission critical' data.
My advice would be to exactly determine what you are seeking to back up, how often and where you are backing up to, then it would be easier for you to work out exactly what you need.