[geeks] windows backup software

[Cory Smelosky]

On 2013-03-21 17:59, Shannon wrote:
> The last few days I have been evaluating a few Windows backup 
> programs.
> 
> I am interested in your experiences in this area.
> 
> I have never really found Windows backup software that I like. They 
> all
> seem to have some serious flaw that annoys me or reduces their
> reliability or performance.
> 
> Its 2013 and I find it amazing how many backup programs are stuck with
> 80s level interfaces, no support for multiple cores, poor use of
> available memory, and poor backup retention and consolidation 
> features.
> 
> 
> My experiences so far:
> 
> Windows Backup:
> 
> Its free, and it works. But there are cons:
> 
> 	- slow
> 	- horrible and nearly non-existant user interface
> 	- inflexible
> 	- no support for any kind of periodic retention of backups
> 
> You can certainly use it as a simple fire-and-forget backup, but 
> that's
> about it.
> 
> CrashPlan:
> 
> Its free (or can be), it works, does have a reasonable UI.
> 
> Pros
> 
> 	- so far seems reliable
> 	- has a good realtime backup
> 	- understands concepts like keeping yearly, monthly, weekly
> 	  backups
> 	- can be expanded to do peer-to-peer backups, cloud backups
> 	  and network backups
> 
> Cons
> 	- it seems to be painfully slow at times
> 	- the UI has glitches, and is still fairly limited
> 	- remote backups slower still
> 
> Acronis True Image 2013:
> 
> Its $50, and it works, and seems reliable. However every version seems
> to have issues that never get fixed, and now and then it makes you
> wonder what the hell is going on. I've never lost data, but sometimes
> end up with a lot more than I needed.
> 
> Pros
> 
> The UI is OK. Not a masterpiece, and some options are not done
> intuitively, takes a bit to work out how to set things like the backup
> retension and consolidation.
> 
> TIB files are documented and can be read if you are willing to write 
> the
> code. Can convert to Windows Backup if you ever want to stop using it
> but still back up.
> 
> I have used this for years, and while it has done the job, its not 
> very
> well done IMHO.
> 
> Cons
> 
> It doesn't understand concepts like keeping weekly, monthly, yearly
> backups... instead it makes you work out the math with its backup
> management settings. Slight errors result in losing your milestone
> backups (saved weekly, monthly, yearlies), or getting too many of 
> them.
> Its doable, but sofware should work that out for you or be easier to 
> do
> in the UI.
> 
> Consolidation is a nightmare, horribly slow and non-intuitive. Its bad
> to the point where just making full backups uses less space and runs 
> faster.
> 
> It sometimes has inexplicable general performance issues even on high
> end hardware. This includes even the UI's operation, and the effect of
> backups on a running system.
> 
> --------------
> 
> I also looked at Backup4All and NovaBackup. NovaBackup seemed to have 
> a
> good reputation but I found its installation and operation messy. It 
> may
> be very good but I was turned off by how the client worked, but I 
> might
> not have given it a fair test. Backup4All I didn't get much time with,
> and it had pretty much no retention features at all, so I have been
> looking elsewhere.
> 
> Basically what I want:
> 
> - reasonably fast
> - retention options like keeping weekly, monthly, yearly versions
>   without me having to work out date math to make it happen
> - good performance on any kind of backup consolidation if needed
>   (prefer to not need it)
> - fast indexing to find files to back up
> - easy configuration and modification of backups
> - a decent UI
> - flexible destinations: local, attached storage, NAS... optionally
>   something like Dropbox would be a bonus, but not required.
> _______________________________________________
> GEEKS:  http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/geeks

You forgot to test backing up the entire filesystem to say...a git 
repo. ;)
(I know how terrible of an idea that is...and that's the joke!)

-- 
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Experiments