Recommend backup software windows 7 64bit home edition?

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by Frankfree, May 6, 2011.

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  1. Frankfree

    Frankfree Registered Member

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    I need a backup software for windows 7 64bit home edition.
    One of those nice backup softwares that can restore every thing I mean the whole system A to Z c drive etc..
     
  2. Cudni

    Cudni Global Moderator

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  3. zfactor

    zfactor Registered Member

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    personally my 2 choices are macrium reflect and shadow protect
     
  4. napoleon1815

    napoleon1815 Registered Member

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    Some are more complex than others...Image for Windows (IFW) is super stable and recommended...other goods ones include:

    1. DriveSnapshot
    2. Macrium
    3. ShadowProtect

    Good luck!
     
  5. Osaban

    Osaban Registered Member

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    Any of the names mentioned are good, I've noticed that some experts often use Image for Windows which is also moderately priced, my choice is ShadowProtect but has a steep price, finally Macrium and Keriver offer free solutions which are reliable.

    If you are new to imaging, remember that creating a backup with any of these programs will not necessarily guarantee a successful restoration, therefore the best way to find out is to restore an image on an healthy system as a test.
     
  6. TheKid7

    TheKid7 Registered Member

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    The Image for Windows/Image for DOS/Image for Linux license agreement says that for Home use, one license may be used for up to two additional PC's (3 PC's Total).
     
  7. Spruce

    Spruce Registered Member

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    Macrium Reflect works fine and is quite affordable ;)
     
  8. Fly

    Fly Registered Member

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    Macrium Reflect free suits all my needs. :thumb:

    I may not have many features, but for simply creating an image and restoring the image it's good.
     
  9. firzen771

    firzen771 Registered Member

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    Windows 7 built in imager is what im using atm, only thing i dont like is that it doesnt seem to compress the images like most 3rd party programs can.
     
  10. moontan

    moontan Registered Member

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    you're right.
    W7 compresses a little but not as much as the others.

    W7 gets my 13 gigs of data to around 7.5 Gb.
    with IFW it's about 4.3 Gb with Standard compression.
     
  11. mind72

    mind72 Registered Member

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    Be aware that Acronis software lately is very buggy! I just returned the product!!
     
  12. moonriver

    moonriver Registered Member

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  13. napoleon1815

    napoleon1815 Registered Member

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    Casper just does disk-to-disk cloning right? I don't think it's a disk imaging software.
     
  14. moonriver

    moonriver Registered Member

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    Sure, to me imaging is a waste of time.
    I have a second internal HDD in a system tray (plus additional external USB HDDs), maintaining the second HDD takes only a few minutes.
    So, I always have an updated clone at the ready, just takes a reboot and I am ready to go.

    From their website:
    EXCLUSIVE! Revolutionary SmartClone™ technology enables Casper to maintain a complete backup replacement hard disk for your system in the same amount of time required by other backup and disk imaging solutions to perform a partial or incremental backup to a proprietary archive!
     
  15. napoleon1815

    napoleon1815 Registered Member

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    Cool...glad you have a system that works. I tried Casper a while back but prefer image files. Are these hot plug drives you are using or when you have to swap do you need to open the case?
     
  16. moonriver

    moonriver Registered Member

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    No, they have "outside" switches to turn them off and on.
     
  17. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    One of the main advantages of images over clones is you can have multiple generations of backups. It's just impractical to keep dozens of cloned HDs going back months. The most common reason for restoring a backup image is a software problem, not a HD failure. For example, let's say you acquired a virus last month but it didn't become manifest until today. Yesterday's backup image or clone will not save you and it's unlikely you will have a month old clone. But keeping backup images for several months is the norm.

    Backup images are files and can be saved/moved anywhere a file can go, such as optical media, USB flash drive, network or local HD. Clones cannot.
    Images are compressed and capture only space in use. Clones are not only uncompressed, they duplicate free space in the partition, as well.
     
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