Poll on Backup software

Photographer_K · Mar 27, 2024

wags1 said:
I’m curious as to why the focus on backup time. My MR backups are scheduled to run when I’m not using my laptop so I honestly don’t care about the backup time, as long as they aren’t unusually long. I really don’t even know how long they take although I suppose I could look in the MR logs if I needed to know.

3 important indicators: backup time, image size, and restore reliability.

Restore reliability is important to everyone, but I only have a simple virtual machine and can't fully test it. And I think this is the most basic functionality and no one fails in my virtual machine.

Whether the backup time is important depends on your usage habits. If you are used to backing up before going to bed and set up to automatically shut down after the backup is completed, then the backup time is not important. If it is during working hours then the backup time is important.

Image size has value for everyone, especially those who don't have a lot of free space.

monkeylove · Mar 28, 2024

Also, check out the lifetime sub for AOMEI, including any promos.

hdmi · Mar 28, 2024

wags1 said:
I personally don’t even pretend to know what’s best for anyone else no less what’s in their mind or their thought processes. I’ll leave that to those more omniscient than I…

What's best for everyone (myself included) is to make informed decisions rather than jump to all sorts of ridiculous conclusions I hope, and, you don't need to be a scientist to be able to figure that out. Speaking of science, computer science is still about science, albeit dealing with Microsoft for prolonged periods of time can very often tend to make a person feel like it's got more to do with Black Magic of course.

Quandary · Mar 28, 2024

Photographer_K said:
Whether the backup time is important depends on your usage habits. If you are used to backing up before going to bed and set up to automatically shut down after the backup is completed, then the backup time is not important. If it is during working hours then the backup time is important.

Maybe or maybe not. With MR (do not know about others) the PC can be used while the backup is running as it uses VSS. Yes there could be performance issue if the normal working activities require serious processor or drive resources.

wags1 · Mar 28, 2024

Quandary said:
Maybe or maybe not. With MR (do not know about others) the PC can be used while the backup is running as it uses VSS. Yes there could be performance issue if the normal working activities require serious processor or drive resources.

This. Normally my MR BUs are set to run when I'm normally not using my laptop but their have been a few times when I was. Honestly except for the notification I would have not known it was running.

RD Mercer · Mar 28, 2024

Can someone suggest a backup solution for me?

Megahertz · Mar 28, 2024

RD Mercer said:
Can someone suggest a backup solution for me?

Best option is Macrium Reflect
Aomei backupper is a good free option

RD Mercer · Mar 28, 2024

Megahertz said:
Best option is Macrium Reflect
Aomei backupper is a good free option

What about a duplicator? Those any good?

Megahertz · Mar 28, 2024

RD Mercer said:
What about a duplicator? Those any good?

What do you mean by duplicator? Do you mean a software that clones a drive into another?
If yes, that is one of the options of the software I mentioned.

RD Mercer · Mar 28, 2024

Megahertz said:
What do you mean by duplicator? Do you mean a software that clones a drive into another?
If yes, that is one of the options of the software I mentioned.

Megahertz · Mar 28, 2024

As you have a desktop you don't need a hardware to duplicate a HDD and I don't know if it can clone a M.2 or 2.5" SSD.
With a desktop all you need is a good software.

RD Mercer · Mar 28, 2024

Megahertz said:
As you have a desktop you don't need a hardware to duplicate a HDD and I don't know if it can clone a M.2 or 2.5" SSD.
With a desktop all you need is a good software.

I have this duplicator, and I also have one for M.2, they work fast and flawlessly. If a person ever goes to stand alone duplicator's, they will never go back to software backup programs again.

cereberus · Mar 29, 2024

RD Mercer said:
If a person ever goes to stand alone duplicator's, they will never go back to software backup programs again.

You are comparing oranges and bananas.

Duplicators are hardware cloning devices and rather elaborate for most persons use. In the end, they are still only cloning devices.

Software image backup tools primary function is to allow a user to restore OS on INSTALLED drives in event of an issue on installed OS/Programs. This is by far a more common requirement.
You can store multiple backups on one drive (assuming reasonable capacity).

A hardware duplicator is not much use in above usage.

RD Mercer · Mar 29, 2024

cereberus said:
You are comparing oranges and bananas.

Duplicators are hardware cloning devices and rather elaborate for most persons use. In the end, they are still only cloning devices.

Software image backup tools primary function is to allow a user to restore OS on INSTALLED drives in event of an issue on installed OS/Programs. This is by far a more common requirement.
You can store multiple backups on one drive (assuming reasonable capacity).

A hardware duplicator is not much use in above usage.

Ok, I respect your opinion, so let’s just agree to disagree. Software methods rely on the performance and stability of the operating system and the cloning software itself, there is a chance that glitches or conflicts may occur during the cloning process. This can lead to incomplete or corrupted duplicates, causing data loss or rendering the cloned disks unusable. I understand no software or hardware based backup/clone is beyond a glitch, I just choose to use the hardware based.

Megahertz · Mar 29, 2024

RD Mercer said:
Can someone suggest a backup solution for me?

RD Mercer said:
Ok, I respect your opinion, so let’s just agree to disagree. Software methods rely on the performance and stability of the operating system and the cloning software itself, there is a chance that glitches or conflicts may occur during the cloning process. This can lead to incomplete or corrupted duplicates, causing data loss or rendering the cloned disks unusable. I understand no software or hardware based backup/clone is beyond a glitch, I just choose to use the hardware based.

If you think duplicators it is the best backup solution why did you ask for a recommendation for a backup solution?

cereberus · Mar 29, 2024

RD Mercer said:
Ok, I respect your opinion, so let’s just agree to disagree. Software methods rely on the performance and stability of the operating system and the cloning software itself, there is a chance that glitches or conflicts may occur during the cloning process. This can lead to incomplete or corrupted duplicates, causing data loss or rendering the cloned disks unusable. I understand no software or hardware based backup/clone is beyond a glitch, I just choose to use the hardware based.

What is there to agree or disagree. Your hardware solves one solution but not image backups.

If that suits you fine but it does not suit anybody who wants to use image backups.

As I said "Oranges and Bananas'

SlicEnDicE · Mar 29, 2024

Both are fruits, but they look and taste differently.

hdmi · Mar 29, 2024

RD Mercer said:
Software methods rely on the performance and stability of the operating system and the cloning software itself, there is a chance that glitches or conflicts may occur during the cloning process. This can lead to incomplete or corrupted duplicates, causing data loss or rendering the cloned disks unusable. I understand no software or hardware based backup/clone is beyond a glitch, I just choose to use the hardware based.

The OS [and apps installed and/or running on it] doesn't come into play in that regard if choosing to use only the bootable rescue environment (e.g., the bootable Rescue Media ISO of Acronis True Image 2021, which is what I still prefer to use for making full/incremental system backups). Also, the bootable rescue environment software itself is much less prone to glitches or conflicts especially when compared to using an app that is running on Windows whilst relying on the Volume Shadow Copy service (VSS) for capturing an image of the actual Windows system partition itself (i.e., the partition on which Windows is actively running during this specific type of backup task, which is also commonly referred to as a "hot backup"). Bootable rescue environment software generally adds significantly fewer complexities that can go wrong, and, also generally, is easier to test for reliability.

Further, one method type does not necessarily have to exclude the other type, as you could always decide to use some combination of both disk cloning through (a) software based feature(s) and disk cloning trough "hardware-only" type of solutions commonly referred to as "duplicators". Due to the fact that each different method can still fail, and can potentially turn out to have its own unique risks like weak points that other methods either might not have or might make you a lot less susceptible somehow, it makes all the perfect sense in the world to rely on the general concept of redundancy also in this regard. That is, not just aim for redundancy solely by choosing to store multiple redundant copies of the same data (typically at least 3, albeit the "3" in "3-2-1 backup" includes the original, or "master" from which the other 2 are copied, i.e. unlike the "3" in "3-2-1-1-0 backup", as the latter "3" does not include the original, I digress...) on various different storage media types, but at the same time also choosing to apply the traditional-old redundancy principle in a broader sense. For reasons that should be completely obvious, like I previously tried to point out, experienced backup specialists don't make these kinds of choices at random excepting only maybe if they plan to sabotage you.

That being said, some (often a bit more expensive) duplicators such as, e.g., the EZ Dupe Leopardo series let you choose between cloning a whole disk and other cloning modes like cloning only the partitioned space or cloning only those specific portions of the partitions that actually are used by the filesystem that it recognizes on each partition or cloning only a specified range. What it doesn't have is the ability to exclude specified folders and files from the cloning. The bootable Rescue Media ISO of Acronis True Image 2021 does have that ability, and it also is possible to use wildcards to specify these exclusions.

Finally, one of the main reasons why I don't use a duplicator is because there exist other reliable ways to verify that there are no incomplete or corrupted duplicates. As a matter of fact, the bootable Rescue Media ISO of Acronis True Image 2021 also has that ability, as it has the option to, as an additional last step in the image creation task, verify it by comparing the data in the newly created image file to the original data i.e. by actually reading all of the data again, to be perfectly sure as opposed to cut some corners during verification to desperately try and make up for belonging in the slow camp (like Macrium Reflect, but let's keep this secret).

RD Mercer · Mar 29, 2024

Megahertz said:
If you think duplicators it is the best backup solution why did you ask for a recommendation for a backup solution?

I was trying to break up the monotony here with a little humor, is humor still ok today?

RD Mercer · Mar 29, 2024

hdmi said:
The OS [and apps installed and/or running on it] doesn't come into play in that regard if choosing to use only the bootable rescue environment (e.g., the bootable Rescue Media ISO of Acronis True Image 2021, which is what I still prefer to use for making full/incremental system backups). Also, the bootable rescue environment software itself is much less prone to glitches or conflicts especially when compared to using an app that is running on Windows whilst relying on the Volume Shadow Copy service (VSS) for capturing an image of the actual Windows system partition itself (i.e., the partition on which Windows is actively running during this specific type of backup task, which is also commonly referred to as a "hot backup"). Bootable rescue environment software generally adds significantly fewer complexities that can go wrong, and, also generally, is easier to test for reliability.

Further, one method type does not necessarily have to exclude the other type, as you could always decide to use some combination of both disk cloning through (a) software based feature(s) and disk cloning trough "hardware-only" type of solutions commonly referred to as "duplicators". Due to the fact that each different method can still fail, and can potentially turn out to have its own unique risks like weak points that other methods either might not have or might make you a lot less susceptible somehow, it makes all the perfect sense in the world to rely on the general concept of redundancy also in this regard. That is, not just aim for redundancy solely by choosing to store multiple redundant copies of the same data (typically at least 3, albeit the "3" in "3-2-1 backup" includes the original, or "master" from which the other 2 are copied, i.e. unlike the "3" in "3-2-1-1-0 backup", as the latter "3" does not include the original, I digress...) on various different storage media types, but at the same time also choosing to apply the traditional-old redundancy principle in a broader sense. For reasons that should be completely obvious, like I previously tried to point out, experienced backup specialists don't make these kinds of choices at random excepting only maybe if they plan to sabotage you.

That being said, some (often a bit more expensive) duplicators such as, e.g., the EZ Dupe Leopardo series let you choose between cloning a whole disk and other cloning modes like cloning only the partitioned space or cloning only those specific portions of the partitions that actually are used by the filesystem that it recognizes on each partition or cloning only a specified range. What it doesn't have is the ability to exclude specified folders and files from the cloning. The bootable Rescue Media ISO of Acronis True Image 2021 does have that ability, and it also is possible to use wildcards to specify these exclusions.

Finally, one of the main reasons why I don't use a duplicator is because there exist other reliable ways to verify that there are no incomplete or corrupted duplicates. As a matter of fact, the bootable Rescue Media ISO of Acronis True Image 2021 also has that ability, as it has the option to, as an additional last step in the image creation task, verify it by comparing the data in the newly created image file to the original data i.e. by actually reading all of the data again, to be perfectly sure as opposed to cut some corners during verification to desperately try and make up for belonging in the slow camp (like Macrium Reflect, but let's keep this secret).

I understand all of that, so what happens if you encounter a power surge, or lighting strike to the home or business, and it fries your PC and everything in it? Do you unplug the drive/drives you backup to? if not a cloud based backup would be your only savior. I have nothing to sell here, or I have no horse in this race, and I respect whatever anyone wants to use, even a hammer,chisel and stone tablet. I'm just saying the duplicators work best for me personally, I'm certainly not trying to change anyone minds on the backup devices they want to use. Just seems there's a lot of bias here, use what works best for you, personally I switched to stand alone duplicators after to many failed recoveries, so I solved that problem with the duplicators.