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What files are included in the file backup?

Recommendations for Windows backup software?

  • Recommendations for Windows backup software? I'd like backup software for my laptop (running Vista Home Premium) that: - Protects against accidental changes/deletes to files, i.e. keeps a version history of files - Backs up files (and their history) to an external drive, perhaps on a schedule, but only if I have my backup drive connected. - Will warn me if a backup is in progress if I want to disconnect the external drive or shut down for whatever reason, but will also gracefully let me stop the backup if that's the case - Will let me specify certain file types to not keep a change/delete history for, i.e. *.mp3. If I change song.mp3, only keep the latest in the backup, or if I delete song2.mp3, remove it from the backup as well - Will make it really obvious if there's a problem writing to the backup drive, and will make it easy to start again with a new backup drive - Otherwise has an unobtrusive interface; I want to set this up and forget about it I'm only interested in backing up documents and media (pretty much everything under C:\users, and other directories like C:\movies), not the whole hard drive. Also, I'm willing to pay for the software. Does software like this, that you have actually used and can recommend, exist? I think I might be describing what Time Machine does on the mac, but I don't need the fancy history UI, or the full-system backup.

  • Answer:

    http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/sbse.html is one I've recommended before. It meets the majority of those criteria, and it's not expensive ($30). Lots and lots of different settings and options, so there's usually a way to achieve whatever kind of backup you need. I don't know of a backup solution for Windows that will warn you if you try to disconnect a drive, though. Presumably it would only be effective if you go through the the proper 'eject media' process, but I haven't seen even that functionality.

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If you're flexible on the 'external hard drive' part, I'd recommend http://www.carbonite.com/en/default.aspx. It's got all the features you're looking for, and costs $54.95/year for unlimited backups. I just did a complete restore from my backup after my hard drive failed, and everything went pretty smoothly. If you want a local and more manual solution, you could give http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=C26EFA36-98E0-4EE9-A7C5-98D0592D8C52&displaylang=en a try. It's a tool from Microsoft that you can use to synchronize (and mirror) files between directories. I've used it for creating backups to external drives. You can also use ithttp://www.mydigitallife.info/2008/01/01/schedule-synctoy-to-run-and-automatically-and-repetitively/, which means you can set it up as a scheduled task.

blue_beetle

I was going to recommend http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/ as well. I've been using it for years. You can definitely set it and forget it if you want, but it also has a lot of options. They have 30-day trails for their software and a freeware version as well, if you want to try out the feature set before you buy.

geeky

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