Any backup programs that do not store in proprietary formats?

"T" wrote in message news
On 04/30/2018 06:43 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , T writes:
Hi All,

I am looking for a backup program (paid or free) that will
store its archives in a non-proprietary format. I other words,
it can store its archives in a format that ANY file manager
can read.
[]
Going to be difficult, if you want to be able to back up your boot
sector/partition table/MFT for restoration after disaster; I don't think
conventional file managers (e. g. Windows Explorer) dead with those.

If it's just the _data_ part (in my case, the D: partition), then I find
SyncToy works as well as any (and certainly what it produces is readable
with Explorer or anything similar, since it basically just does a copy
(just speeds the process, if you're backing up to somewhere you have
already backed up to previously, by only dealing with what's changed
since last time).

Just looking for the data.

For unpacked data I use Karen's Replicator. If I wanted it packed, I'd use
WinRar.

T wrote:
On 04/30/2018 11:16 PM, JJ wrote:
On Mon, 30 Apr 2018 17:08:04 -0700, T wrote:

Hi All,

I am looking for a backup program (paid or free) that will
store its archives in a non-proprietary format. I other words,
it can store its archives in a format that ANY file manager
can read.

I am basically looking for a replacement for Cobian Backup,
which is abandon ware.

I have tested Macrium Reflect, which is a sweet package, but
their tech support has verified that they can only store
in their proprietary format, so they are out.

You guys have a favorite that archives in a non-proprietary
format?

Many thanks,
-T

Most file manager support at least ZIP. But if you intend to backup files
including their security attributes, from NTFS drive, ZIP archive is
not a
good archive for this - because it doesn't support NTFS extended and
security attributes. The only archives (that I know) which support NTFS
extended and security attributes, are RAR, 7-Zip, and WIM.

Otherwise, any arhive format will do - as long as they support Unicode
file
names. i.e. not CAB or ZIP.

If you use ZIP, make sure no file you want to backup, do not contains any
character which is not within ANSI character set.


It doesn't not need to be that fancy.

I do like Macrium, except you have to have Macrium to recover files

If you do your Macrium backup in two steps

1) Backup to MRIMG.
2) Use built-in capability to make a VHD file from the MRIMG

the VHD files can be mounted in W7/W8/W10 and randomly accessed.
You don't need Macrium once the VHD is made.

Win7 builtin "Backup" uses VHD as a format.

Win10's version of "Win7 backup" uses VHDX.

The difference is, .vhdx supports differencing
and also holds more than 2.2TB of files. The .vhd
format, you can "declare" a 3TB volume in a .vhd,
but as soon as you "write out" more than 2.2TB of
files, it will fall over. So no matter what the
storage device size is, with .vhd, the limit is
2.2TB of files per archive. The .vhd file itself
cannot be larger than 2.2TB in size (with all the
file clusters stored in it).

The disadvantage of .vhd, is doing a volume restore.
Windows 7 backup knows how to do that, but the .vhd
format in Windows 7 backup is "one .vhd per partition".
Whereas the Macrium .vhd format, is a "disk drive image",
so if a disk had four partitions, all four partitions
as well as the boot track and the MBR would be stored
in a single VHD.

7ZIP can open .vhd files too, but I'm having more and
more trouble as time goes by with this, as I seem to be
getting a lot of "geometry declarations" that 7ZIP
doesn't like. And attempting to clean that up using
VPC2007 "compact" function is wearing a bit thin.
(VirtualBox may have a "compact" too, but they don't
have a full matrix for file type support. VPC2007
causes less damage with things like internal identifiers.)

The OS should be able to "mount" a VHD with fewer issues.

Random access isn't enough. Being able to pick out
single files from a "converted" VHD is nice, but it
does not represent a whole solution. You still need
Macrium to work with MRIMG files for a complete
restore solution.

And if you wanted a VHD to play with, you can try
out "disk2vhd" from Sysinternals. Which uses VSS shadow
copies as far as I know.

*Don't* use the .vhdx tick box, unless you're ready for
it. It's possible a platform may need Hyper-V installed,
before you have some means to mount those. A .vhdx can
hold more than 2.2TB of files, which is about its only
desirable feature. Once you have a .vhdx, *then* what do you
do ? I only have one computer here with SLAT/EPT to
support Hyper-V, and if my "Hyper-V" computer were to
die, I'd be screwed. This is why I'm not interested in
any intellectual investment in Hyper-V. Too "exclusive".
If I happened to have two computers with SLAT/EPT, I'd
be using Hyper-V by now.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sys...loads/disk2vhd

A subtlety with .vhdx, is if a tool you're using is
actually using differencing, you need *two* files. If
you see a 20KB empty .vhdx and a 2TB .vhdx file,
*keep both of them*. If you ignore the 20KB one
or throw it away, you *can't read* the 2TB one next
to it. If you work with .vhdx, tread carefully.
I think some little test I was trying, I learned
about that the hard way.

If I knew of an actual "good" way to meet your
requirements, I'd have told you by now. I don't think
I have any method that "strictly" meets your
requirement list, and you'd be disappointed.
Lots of backup tools have "Viewers" and that's
about as good as it gets. You can't expect to
forensically preserve permissions, ACLs and all
those gubbins, without a "bag" to hold them in.
When I use TAR as an example, yes, it stored the
metadata back in its era, that the designers thought
would be enough. But that's not enough today.

And now that Microsoft is throwing curve balls
from the mound (allowing users to format NTFS
partitions using cluster sizes larger than 64KB),
you're going to have to be extra careful with
even what "versions" of backup software you're running.
I haven't done any tests yet, to see what backup
tools throw a hissy fit when they see one of those.
WinXP already said "no, thanks" when shown one of those.

Paul

T wrote:
On 04/30/2018 05:08 PM, T wrote:
Hi All,

I am looking for a backup program (paid or free) that will
store its archives in a non-proprietary format. I other words,
it can store its archives in a format that ANY file manager
can read.

I am basically looking for a replacement for Cobian Backup,
which is abandon ware.

I have tested Macrium Reflect, which is a sweet package, but
their tech support has verified that they can only store
in their proprietary format, so they are out.

You guys have a favorite that archives in a non-proprietary
format?


Many thanks,
-T


How about Backup4all?

http://www.backup4all.com/

That's not an OS backup tool.

That's a file-by-file tool, similar to the Win10
version of Windows 7 backup, that has a file-by-file
option in it. Windows 7 backup in Win10 makes
a series of "200MB ZIP files" to hold the output.

That's great for backing up your Todd\Downloads folder,
and not a candidate for System32 or WinSXS or other
touchy places.

"If it outputs ZIP, it's not for the OS goodies."

A company doing a file-by-file tool, has to be
*damn good* to keep up with the Microsoft innovation
rate. I don't know if Microsoft gives these companies
any advance warning or not, of impending disasters
they're rolling out.

The shadow copy based tools are slightly less sensitive
to Microsoft curve-balls. But, since the tools still
dabble in metadata, there are bound to be effects. For
example, Macrium supports "resize-on-the-fly" on a restore,
and this involves the file index it collected as the last
step of the backup. When run that way, Macrium is going
to be more exposed, because it is in effect, copying
files rather than just restoring data clusters to
their original locations. One side effect of
"resize-on-the-fly" is the partition has less
fragmentation (but not zero fragmentation) after
the restore is finished. Not every VSS tool
supports resize (some may offer their own
Disk Management functions for after-the-fact
changes to the partition instead, a two step
approach).

Paul

T wrote:
On 04/30/2018 05:08 PM, T wrote:
Hi All,

I am looking for a backup program (paid or free) that will
store its archives in a non-proprietary format. I other words,
it can store its archives in a format that ANY file manager
can read.

I am basically looking for a replacement for Cobian Backup,
which is abandon ware.

I have tested Macrium Reflect, which is a sweet package, but
their tech support has verified that they can only store
in their proprietary format, so they are out.

You guys have a favorite that archives in a non-proprietary
format?


Many thanks,
-T

Any of you guys have any experience with KLS?
http://kls-soft.com/main/index.php

Looking at screen shots on the web site, it seems to be able to
back up the C: drive. Couldn't find a PDF manual.

You'll probably have to install a trial, to figure
out what good it is. Since the output is your
preferred ZIP format, this could be a contender.

Paul

On 05/01/2018 04:52 AM, Paul wrote:
T wrote:
On 04/30/2018 11:16 PM, JJ wrote:
On Mon, 30 Apr 2018 17:08:04 -0700, T wrote:

Hi All,

I am looking for a backup program (paid or free) that will
store its archives in a non-proprietary format.Â* I other words,
it can store its archives in a format that ANY file manager
can read.

I am basically looking for a replacement for Cobian Backup,
which is abandon ware.

I have tested Macrium Reflect, which is a sweet package, but
their tech support has verified that they can only store
in their proprietary format, so they are out.

You guys have a favorite that archives in a non-proprietary
format?

Many thanks,
-T

Most file manager support at least ZIP. But if you intend to backup
files
including their security attributes, from NTFS drive, ZIP archive is
not a
good archive for this - because it doesn't support NTFS extended and
security attributes. The only archives (that I know) which support NTFS
extended and security attributes, are RAR, 7-Zip, and WIM.

Otherwise, any arhive format will do - as long as they support
Unicode file
names. i.e. not CAB or ZIP.

If you use ZIP, make sure no file you want to backup, do not contains
any
character which is not within ANSI character set.


It doesn't not need to be that fancy.

I do like Macrium, except you have to have Macrium to recover files

If you do your Macrium backup in two steps

1) Backup to MRIMG.
2) Use built-in capability to make a VHD file from the MRIMG

the VHD files can be mounted in W7/W8/W10 and randomly accessed.
You don't need Macrium once the VHD is made.

Win7 builtin "Backup" uses VHD as a format.

Win10's version of "Win7 backup" uses VHDX.

The difference is, .vhdx supports differencing
and also holds more than 2.2TB of files. The .vhd
format, you can "declare" a 3TB volume in a .vhd,
but as soon as you "write out" more than 2.2TB of
files, it will fall over. So no matter what the
storage device size is, with .vhd, the limit is
2.2TB of files per archive. The .vhd file itself
cannot be larger than 2.2TB in size (with all the
file clusters stored in it).

The disadvantage of .vhd, is doing a volume restore.
Windows 7 backup knows how to do that, but the .vhd
format in Windows 7 backup is "one .vhd per partition".
Whereas the Macrium .vhd format, is a "disk drive image",
so if a disk had four partitions, all four partitions
as well as the boot track and the MBR would be stored
in a single VHD.

7ZIP can open .vhd files too, but I'm having more and
more trouble as time goes by with this, as I seem to be
getting a lot of "geometry declarations" that 7ZIP
doesn't like. And attempting to clean that up using
VPC2007 "compact" function is wearing a bit thin.
(VirtualBox may have a "compact" too, but they don't
have a full matrix for file type support. VPC2007
causes less damage with things like internal identifiers.)

The OS should be able to "mount" a VHD with fewer issues.

Random access isn't enough. Being able to pick out
single files from a "converted" VHD is nice, but it
does not represent a whole solution. You still need
Macrium to work with MRIMG files for a complete
restore solution.

And if you wanted a VHD to play with, you can try
out "disk2vhd" from Sysinternals. Which uses VSS shadow
copies as far as I know.

*Don't* use the .vhdx tick box, unless you're ready for
it. It's possible a platform may need Hyper-V installed,
before you have some means to mount those. A .vhdx can
hold more than 2.2TB of files, which is about its only
desirable feature. Once you have a .vhdx, *then* what do you
do ? I only have one computer here with SLAT/EPT to
support Hyper-V, and if my "Hyper-V" computer were to
die, I'd be screwed. This is why I'm not interested in
any intellectual investment in Hyper-V. Too "exclusive".
If I happened to have two computers with SLAT/EPT, I'd
be using Hyper-V by now.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sys...loads/disk2vhd

A subtlety with .vhdx, is if a tool you're using is
actually using differencing, you need *two* files. If
you see a 20KB empty .vhdx and a 2TB .vhdx file,
*keep both of them*. If you ignore the 20KB one
or throw it away, you *can't read* the 2TB one next
to it. If you work with .vhdx, tread carefully.
I think some little test I was trying, I learned
about that the hard way.

If I knew of an actual "good" way to meet your
requirements, I'd have told you by now. I don't think
I have any method that "strictly" meets your
requirement list, and you'd be disappointed.
Lots of backup tools have "Viewers" and that's
about as good as it gets. You can't expect to
forensically preserve permissions, ACLs and all
those gubbins, without a "bag" to hold them in.
When I use TAR as an example, yes, it stored the
metadata back in its era, that the designers thought
would be enough. But that's not enough today.

And now that Microsoft is throwing curve balls
from the mound (allowing users to format NTFS
partitions using cluster sizes larger than 64KB),
you're going to have to be extra careful with
even what "versions" of backup software you're running.
I haven't done any tests yet, to see what backup
tools throw a hissy fit when they see one of those.
WinXP already said "no, thanks" when shown one of those.

Â*Â* Paul

Thank you!

On 05/01/2018 05:04 AM, Paul wrote:
That's not an OS backup tool.

Only looking to backup up certain directories

On Mon, 30 Apr 2018 17:08:04 -0700, T wrote:

Hi All,

I am looking for a backup program (paid or free) that will
store its archives in a non-proprietary format. I other words,
it can store its archives in a format that ANY file manager
can read.

I am basically looking for a replacement for Cobian Backup,
which is abandon ware.

I have tested Macrium Reflect, which is a sweet package, but
their tech support has verified that they can only store
in their proprietary format, so they are out.

You guys have a favorite that archives in a non-proprietary
format?

Any sync program that can do a simple file-copy (including
open files). You could 7-Zip the result, if you need space.
e.g. FreeFileSync or AOMEI Backupper (both free).
You can't IMAGE a disk or partition and produce a 100%
explorer-viewable file, since it will contain partition etc
information.
[]'s
--
Don't be evil - Google 2004
We have a new policy - Google 2012

T wrote:
Hi All,

I am looking for a backup program (paid or free) that will
store its archives in a non-proprietary format. I other words,
it can store its archives in a format that ANY file manager
can read.

I am basically looking for a replacement for Cobian Backup,
which is abandon ware.

I have tested Macrium Reflect, which is a sweet package, but
their tech support has verified that they can only store
in their proprietary format, so they are out.

You guys have a favorite that archives in a non-proprietary
format?


Many thanks,
-T


I have been reading this thread with interest and think what you are trying
to do is similar to me so here is my solution.

I travel with an iPad and wanted access to my home Win 7 PC’s data files
while the PC is off during travel. The PC backs up to an NAS and I use
RoboCopy to copy data into a daily folder (Mon, Tue, etc) and Acronis for
weekly incremental images. The NAS requires a password for remote access
while I travel. The image also requires a password but cannot be accessed
from the iPad’s iOS. All of this is handled automatically by a batch
running unattended overnight on the PC which is on 24/7 except during
travel.

--
Zaidy036

On 2018-05-01, Paul wrote:
Isn't there some way to create a shadow as a separate step ?
It doesn't say here though, whether the results had any
integrity or not.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/...bocopy-on-win7

Interesting, will have to look at that. I have used a shadow copy aware
program called "hobocopy" (https://github.com/candera/hobocopy) to squirrel
away a copy of open files, then use robocopy for the primary backup to
external media.

Hobocopy has since been replaced by "shadowspawn", which mounts a shadow
copy as a drive letter (https://github.com/candera/shadowspawn), but I
have not tried that one yet.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roger Blake (Posts from Google Groups killfiled due to excess spam.)

NSA sedition and treason -- http://www.DeathToNSAthugs.com
Don't talk to cops! -- http://www.DontTalkToCops.com
Badges don't grant extra rights -- http://www.CopBlock.org
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

On 01/05/2018 01:08, T wrote:
Hi All,

I am looking for a backup program (paid or free) that will
store its archives in a non-proprietary format.Â* I other words,
it can store its archives in a format that ANY file manager
can read.

I am basically looking for a replacement for Cobian Backup,
which is abandon ware.

I no longer use any proprietary backup tool - reason? In the days
before HDs became cheap, I used to back up to tape, and discovered the
hard way that if the final tape became unreadable for any reason, the
*entire* backup was lost, because that was the one containing all the
directory and filename information! Duh! Talk about building in a
guaranteed weakness!

Others have mentioned Ghost, and it too suffers from this syndrome, if,
as I still do, you break up the backup into segments each about 2GB long
(so that if necessary they can go onto a FAT32 USB drive), then, if the
last segment is corrupted, the entire backup is lost. Nevertheless, I
still use Ghost, but in a very limited way, as described below.

I split every system I own, Linux or Windows, into two areas, system
disk or partition and data disk or partition, and I back them up
seperately in different ways.

I use Ghost only for Windows system images, making them every two or
three months or whenever I'm about to make significant changes such as
trying out new software, and I have Ghost Explorer installed on every
Windows system so that if necessary I can use any Windows machine to
retrieve individual files for any other Windows machine. I make the
backups using a W98-DOS mode bootable USB drive to run Ghost, and I back
up the system image to the data disk or partition, so that when that
next gets backed up, the system backup will be included. Also, this
means that each PC always has its latest Ghost image on it for
convenient restoration.

For my Linux systems, I've gone a rather different route, I have a
script that installs all my custom software, configures my website, etc,
so that if a Linux installation get corrupted, I boot from a standard
Linux installation USB to reinstall it, then run the script to customise
it, and about an hour or two later the machine is ready to use.

For Windows data, I use a Win32 implementation of Linux's rsync called
DeltaCopy, which, as its name implies, only backs up changed files. Be
aware that if you have files with accented filenames, you will need to
find a DLL from an external source to replace one of those supplied with
DeltaCopy. I download and set up DeltaCopy so long ago, and now just
copy the program and start menu directories onto new builds, that I
can't remember any more detail of the problem than that, but at the time
I solved it simply by searching the web. The program works very well
for me, running as well on 64-bit machines as 32-bit.

For Linux data, again I use rsync.

So where does the data go, and what about backup formats? It goes onto
a NAS device running under Linux, which runs the rsync daemon (server)
to receive the data from rsync and DeltaCopy, and has both Windows
(Samba) and Linux (NFS) sharing to allow access from each client OS to
the backed up data. You may care to note that DeltaCopy also has a
server component which would allow you to set up a Windows PC or server
to be the destination of the backups. Because Linux and Windows have
different permissions systems, I run a program overnight on the NAS to
ensure that the Linux permissions set on the Windows data allow access
from Windows machines. This is done by adding all Windows users to a
Linux group, and giving that group access to the data. However, I've
recently realised that you can get rsync to change the ownership for
itself, but haven't yet had a chance to try this out.

So no proprietary format is involved, and if just one file is corrupted,
a raft of others aren't lost. I can access the data on the NAS any time
via its shares without needing any special program, with the exception
that I need Ghost Explorer to read the Ghost backups if I need to find
individual files from a Windows system disk image.

My phone and tablet are backed up via USB to the Windows data partition,
and thence they too get backed up to the server.

The ease of using this system has revolutionised my backing up, I just
set a back up going a little before I go upstairs to bed, and it's
usually completed in time for me to shut down the PC before doing so,
and if not, I leave it going overnight. Now the biggest source of loss
of data is when yours truly get a little too zealous doing data
housekeeping!

However, I should point out that the system took some setting up.
Besides the replacement DLL needed for DeltaCopy, you also need to
configure its client at least, and the server if you intend to use it.
The NAS itself needed some customisation to make it more useful than as
supplied, and of course you need to configure its rsync daemon to match
how you configured the DeltaCopy client. None of this would be for the
technically hard of thinking, but once it works, it just works.

In message , T writes:
On 04/30/2018 09:20 PM, mike wrote:
A couple of clicks in Macrium will mount the backup and give
you access as a drive letter.* What's unacceptable about that?

Not what I was meaning.


What I am after is if a disaster happends and you want to
recover files from your backups, I want to be able to do
it with any file manager.

Macrium requires Macrium to recover.

If disaster strikes, meaning your only HD dies (if it's a laptop it
usually only has space for one HD), then the first thing you'll need to
do is get a working system back. This means, if you don't have a way
(Macrium or similar) of restoring the OS from image, you've got to find
an OS install disc, install it, activate it, get all the updates,
reinstall all the additional software (you do have the install files,
don't you?), then tweak everything back to how you like it, assuming you
can even remember what those tweaks were and how to do them. THEN you
can reload your _data_ from your any-file-manager backup.

If you have an imaging system such as Macrium, you NEED a boot CD in
order to restore the image. (I can't stress this enough! I _always_ make
my backup images by booting from this CD anyway, rather than running -
in my case Macrium - from within Windows. I feel safer that way.)

So, unless you _are_ going to restore the OS (and all the other
software) by the long-winded way anyway, you _will_ have (e. g.) Macrium
anyway - so discarding it for that reason is less valid.

However, I _do_ backup my D: partition using SyncToy (so the backup _is_
readable with ordinary explorer). But I have Macrium anyway, for imaging
C:-plus-hidden. It fits on a mini-CD, which I find easier to keep with
my backup drive. (I could even tape its paper sleeve _to_ the backup
drive, though I haven't.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

If you bate your breath do you catch a lung fish? (Glynn Greenwood 1996-8-23.)

On 4/30/2018 11:05 PM, T wrote:
On 04/30/2018 09:20 PM, mike wrote:
A couple of clicks in Macrium will mount the backup and give
you access as a drive letter. What's unacceptable about that?

Not what I was meaning.


What I am after is if a disaster happends and you want to
recover files from your backups, I want to be able to do
it with any file manager.

Macrium requires Macrium to recover.

Backup is a lot harder than it looks.

My definition of DISASTER is that the system
is corrupt and won't boot to a viable system.
You absolutely need something like Macrium
to recover from that.
If the system won't run or is held ransom,
You will have to boot something else to get it back.
That something might as well be Macrium, because it works
over a WIDE variation in system configurations.

Most people leave their system as one partition and don't
really have any place to store full backups.
If you put your windows stuff on C: and the rest on D:,
you can backup C: frequently and save more than one iteration.
A Macrium full backup of my C: takes 10GB.

I have a "mike" directory on C:. It contains a directory tree
of all my stuff. There's an "apps" directory that has most of
my applications, mostly portable ones. I use as few MS programs
as possible because they get all tied up in registry entries
and copy protection/activation.
I don't let anything stay in "Users" unless it's absolutely
positively required to be there. Anything that resides in
a default Microsoft directory tree is at risk.

D: can be backed up as files, because they don't interact with the registry.

You cannot just copy system files back and hope it works.

There's another issue that many don't consider.
How does your file backup system determine what to backup?
If you edit a file to change a phone number, does the
backup system know that it changed and needs to be backed up?
File sizes and file dates are unreliable indicators.

If your definition of 'disaster' is that you accidentally
deleted a non-system file, any file backup will do.
But I'd stay off the internet if you expect that to be enough.

"mike" wrote in message
news
There's another issue that many don't consider.
How does your file backup system determine what to backup?
If you edit a file to change a phone number, does the
backup system know that it changed and needs to be backed up?
File sizes and file dates are unreliable indicators.

How else would you determine that a file had changed - other than by doing a
byte-for-byte comparison of each file on the main drive versus the one in
the backup, which would be horrendously slow if the change to a file was in
the *last* few bytes of a big file.

I think most backup programs use last-modified time to determine what to
back up.


People are talking about restoring the whole C drive in the event of a
complete HDD failure or corruption. How often do you re-make the system
backup, so as to restore the PC to a recent state rather than one from
several years ago which will then need all the subsequent
additions/deletions/changes re-applying.

On 5/2/2018 1:35 AM, NY wrote:
"mike" wrote in message
news
There's another issue that many don't consider.
How does your file backup system determine what to backup?
If you edit a file to change a phone number, does the
backup system know that it changed and needs to be backed up?
File sizes and file dates are unreliable indicators.

How else would you determine that a file had changed - other than by
doing a byte-for-byte comparison of each file on the main drive versus
the one in the backup, which would be horrendously slow if the change to
a file was in the *last* few bytes of a big file.

Yes, that's the issue.

I think most backup programs use last-modified time to determine what to
back up.

Keyword: most.
What happens if you move a file? Or copy a file?
It's good to test it.
If you do a manual copy, you get a popup asking if you want to replace
the file. For automatic, silent copies from a random program, I'd test it.


People are talking about restoring the whole C drive in the event of a
complete HDD failure or corruption. How often do you re-make the system
backup, so as to restore the PC to a recent state rather than one from
several years ago which will then need all the subsequent
additions/deletions/changes re-applying.

I'll try to describe it again...
If your C: is small, you can easily do it frequently.
I rarely make changes to my system, so I only do a C: backup
about monthly.
I use Macrium to backup C: to a file on D:
Then I copy that backup file to an external archive drive. If I'm
installing new stuff, I typically back it
up BEFORE I make changes, then again AFTER I've decided that the new
stuff is working properly. Ditto for updates.
System Restore oughta work for that,
but It seems most likely to fail if I don't have a current backup.
I've never needed the archived backup, I can just mount the backup
archive from D: or restore it. If I ever do have a catastrophe, I
feel confident that I have enough stuff saved offline.

For data, I have a thumb drive plugged into the router that gets
mirror copies of all data files I create. That gets sync'd to
D: periodically, and again to an external backup drive periodically.
When the archive gets over 5GB, I copy it
to a DVD.

I have people call me for help when disaster strikes.
They have a terabyte drive with one partition filled to
the brim. They can't back it all up, cuz there's no place to store it.
I can't count the hours I've spent helping people recover systems
that had no backup. They absolutely REFUSE to manage their system
to facilitate frequent backups.

"mike" wrote in message
news
I have people call me for help when disaster strikes.
They have a terabyte drive with one partition filled to
the brim. They can't back it all up, cuz there's no place to store it.
I can't count the hours I've spent helping people recover systems
that had no backup. They absolutely REFUSE to manage their system
to facilitate frequent backups.


I have a 4 TB drive with one partition, which I used for TV recordings,
digital photos, home movies. I don't have a 4 TB backup drive. But... I have
set up several SyncToy folder pairs which back up TV to one backup drive,
digital photos to another, home movies to another, and I backup as and when
I change/add something.

I also backup my Windows Live Mail email folder and I've generated .iaf
files for the various email accounts so I don't need to enter the server
names, usernames/passwords etc. I've only had to resort to the email backup
once when I accidentally deleted a folder within WLM and emptied the recycle
bin before i noticed; copying back was as simple as remaking the folder in
WLM and then dragging/dropping the .eml files (one per message) from the
backup into the folder in WLM.

I really ought to be more disciplined in removing a backup drive and storing
it away from the PC whenever I'm not actually backing up to it, to guard
against fire/theft. At least, even with the drive left plugged in, I'm
guarding against failure of the real drive or deleting from it or corruption
of a file (eg by making a stupid change and not undoing it before saving and
overwriting the good version). If I was doing it properly I'd have the
backup drives in a NAS somewhere and backup to them over SMB using
\\NAS\folder\file notation. But that would mean laying on Ethernet or using
Homeplug devices; I've found that wifi is horrendously slow when backing up
to my laptop, even with good signal strength.