Reliable Free Backup Software

TairikuOkami said:

I do not know any other free software that does this. Aomei used to do it, not anymore, it is paid now, that is the reason I switched.

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I've amended my previous post. Downloaded the latest free version to test before I saw your post.

TairikuOkami said:

I do not know any other free software that does this. Aomei used to do it, not anymore, it is paid now, that is the reason I switched.

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If you start an operation within windows for which booting into preos is required, aomei will tell you what it is about to do and boot into preos for that operation.

Do you mean add it to the windows boot menu display or scankey ? That is something different which anybody can do. Just need to add a winpe entry to the bcd store which points at the wim file the program has created.

TairikuOkami said:

I do not know any other free software that does this. Aomei used to do it, not anymore, it is paid now, that is the reason I switched.

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Macrium Reflect has always been able to do this, even in the Free version. Here's my Reflect Free's BCD entry that it created for me.

johnlgalt said:

And reliability is defined differently when you're talking mission-critical enterprise systems versus home users.

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From the article I linked: "However, in actual application scenarios, hot database backup is usually needed more by IT administrators."
Emphasis in bold is mine. Immediately I should add that, to an actual Windows application, the Windows registry is a database, and, the filesystem also is a database.

For home users, cold backups are the only real way to make sure that reliability can also be defined, as the lack of a reliable, robust verification method when using Macrium Reflect Free or similar software running on Windows to make a hot image already implies that reliability can not be defined, adequately, within reason, as now you literally are depending on a whole lot of (multi-factorially complex) guesswork in that department, particularly, anyway to begin with. What reliability have you got left, when you can't put a finger on it besides making claims from the likes of "your house and that of all the people you know never caught on fire, therefore these houses must all meet the (reliable) definition of a reliable place to live in"? Carl Sagan's famous book titled "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark" explains this type of flawed reasoning really well.

johnlgalt said:

Pretty sure the differentiation between crash-consistency and application-consistency is not only going to be too hard to understand for the average end user dealing with a home system, but largely irrelevant.

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I never said that the average end user dealing with a home system needs to understand this specific differentiation. What I tried to point out instead was that he/she shouldn't need to depend on the kind of reliability that exists primarily within a lot of people's colorful imaginations. The relevancy here comes from the fact that this discussion is about using software to create the kind of images that can be stored as persistently reliable backups, not about encouraging him/her and other people like him/her to use it for the goal of sustaining persistent imaginations. The bottom line is, it usually takes IT administrator skills to be able to, consistently, deal with inconsistent data gained from snapshot creation, the inconsistencies in which are a result of pending operation tasks that belong to various applications and background processes still actively running on the system whilst making a hot backup (i.e., as opposed to making a cold one). Applications might be able to fully recover from these inconsistencies or they might not be. It quite simply depends on things like what exactly are the applications you use, and how you use them.

In short, for the average home user, shutting down Windows before booting from a USB flash drive to make a cold image should neither be that especially hard nor be so terribly inconvenient, that he/she should need to face the added risks inherent of making a hot image. This isn't to say that hot images are necessarily always completely useless to the average home user. Making cold images does not prevent the user from still being able to make an occasional hot image. But for the average home user to mainly depend on hot images calling them "reliable backups" and to then keep using that as a pretext for not needing to make cold images? I mean, let me please apologize in advance for my doing this on purpose, but... here's what I believe qualifies as probably the best way to describe the essence of that:

I bought a 4 pack of Macrium 8. I only installed it on 2 computers. I boot the other 2 using the rescue media and back up and restore with that.

I don't see how macrium could price themselves out of the market for me. Seems like buying 1 perpetual license in the future will be enough to allow me to backup my systems.

Where in this thread does Bree discuss Windows Backup?

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He talks about wbadmin and the "clumsy" ways it goes. wbadmin is windows image backup.
The fact that it's no longer being developed (a state it has been in since 1709, 6 years ago) does not affect its functionality so far. It's wizard driven, so clumsy is not really applicable. But feel free to speak out against it.

Comport Colin said:

since 1709, 6 years ago

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1709? That's 314 years ago...

Perchance Comport means version, not annum?

Wisewiz said:

Perchance Comport means version, not annum?

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Just kidding of course.

Ah. Well, ho ho ho.

hdmi said:

From the article I linked: "However, in actual application scenarios, hot database backup is usually needed more by IT administrators."
Emphasis in bold is mine. Immediately I should add that, to an actual Windows application, the Windows registry is a database, and, the filesystem also is a database.

For home users, cold backups are the only real way to make sure that reliability can also be defined, as the lack of a reliable, robust verification method when using Macrium Reflect Free or similar software running on Windows to make a hot image already implies that reliability can not be defined, adequately, within reason, as now you literally are depending on a whole lot of (multi-factorially complex) guesswork in that department, particularly, anyway to begin with. What reliability have you got left, when you can't put a finger on it besides making claims from the likes of "your house and that of all the people you know never caught on fire, therefore these houses must all meet the (reliable) definition of a reliable place to live in"? Carl Sagan's famous book titled "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark" explains this type of flawed reasoning really well.

I never said that the average end user dealing with a home system needs to understand this specific differentiation. What I tried to point out instead was that he/she shouldn't need to depend on the kind of reliability that exists primarily within a lot of people's colorful imaginations. The relevancy here comes from the fact that this discussion is about using software to create the kind of images that can be stored as persistently reliable backups, not about encouraging him/her and other people like him/her to use it for the goal of sustaining persistent imaginations. The bottom line is, it usually takes IT administrator skills to be able to, consistently, deal with inconsistent data gained from snapshot creation, the inconsistencies in which are a result of pending operation tasks that belong to various applications and backround processes still actively running on the system whilst making a hot backup (i.e., as opposed to making a cold one). Applications might be able to fully recover from these inconsistencies or they might not be. It quite simply depends on things like what exactly are the applications you use, and how you use them.

In short, for the average home user, shutting down Windows before booting from a USB flash drive to make a cold image should neither be that especially hard nor be so terribly inconvenient, that he/she should need to face the added risks inherent of making a hot image. This isn't to say that hot images are necessarily always completely useless to the average home user. Making cold images does not prevent the user from still being able to make an occasional hot image. But for the average home user to mainly depend on hot images calling them "reliable backups" and to then keep using that as a pretext for not needing to make cold images? I mean, let me please apologize in advance for my doing this on purpose, but... here's what I believe qualifies as probably the best way to describe the essence of that:

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I believe macrium "locks" the partition so you can actually continue to use macrium while imaging -- however changes won't be captured. But it makes sense for all sorts of reasons to not do any activity on windows while running imaging / cloning.

However within the limitations you can still use Windows -- if this were damaging etc specially when running macrium from windows itself then I doubt if Macrium would have allowed any activity on the "C" drive while the job was running.

Many big servers and large mySQL type databases have to take backups while running 24/7 (although this is usually by using logs and "resilient file systems").

Cheers
jimbo

hdmi said:

The bottom line is, it usually takes IT administrator skills to be able to, consistently, deal with inconsistent data gained from snapshot creation, the inconsistencies in which are a result of pending operation tasks that belong to various applications and backround processes still actively running on the system whilst making a hot backup (i.e., as opposed to making a cold one).

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You emphasis goes a long way to supporting my argument.

hdmi said:

I never said that the average end user dealing with a home system needs to understand this specific differentiation.

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If you are then saying that without understanding the end user needs to not believe in the efficacy, you're treading on dangerous waters. And, for the record, there are more fallacious arguments here.

hdmi said:

What I tried to point out instead was that he/she shouldn't need to depend on the kind of reliability that exists primarily within a lot of people's colorful imaginations.

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In case you missed it, the requirements are for backups that can be restored. The end user may not be hyper-critical about backups on the fly every period it can, but will be backing up at least regularly, weekly, if not more often.

However, the end user also doesn't have gobs of space in massive SANs to store these backups. The end result is that there is not a long term storage facet to these backups - I seriously doubt anyone here is keeping more than 3 full system backups in storage for long term in any way, manner, or fashion.

hdmi said:

The relevancy here comes from the fact that this discussion is about using software to create the kind of images that can be stored as persistently reliable backups, not about encouraging him/her and other people like him/her to use it for the goal of sustaining persistent imaginations

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Disagree. I think you're reading too much into the needs of the home user versus the needs of a company, corporation or enterprise. End Users typically don't have local and federal laws to comply with concerning data retention, whereby long term storage actually becomes a critical consideration when it comes to making backups. Likewise, home users don't typically implement a mutli-faceted backup strategy, including off-site storage to remain in said compliance.

hdmi said:

For home users, cold backups are the only real way to make sure that reliability can also be defined, as the lack of a reliable, robust verification method when using Macrium Reflect Free or similar software running on Windows to make a hot image already implies that reliability can not be defined, adequately, within reason, as now you literally are depending on a whole lot of (multi-factorially complex) guesswork in that department, particularly, anyway to begin with.

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So you're saying the use of the native Windows feature VSS is not reliable? You're saying that Macrium, and other that make use of VSS to make these hot-backups, are not able to reliably verify the data?

Sorry, but before I go believing random words like that I need proof that this is true. Unlike more home users, I *am* conversant in IT, having made it my career, and your arguments here are more circular than you realize, falling into your very own trap regarding fallacious argumentation.

pparks1 said:

I bought a 4 pack of Macrium 8. I only installed it on 2 computers. I boot the other 2 using the rescue media and back up and restore with that.

I don't see how macrium could price themselves out of the market for me. Seems like buying 1 perpetual license in the future will be enough to allow me to backup my systems.

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I just had a thought . . .

Could it be possible that since Macrium is no longer handing out free Macrium Reflect, that they might lower the price a little bit? Just a WAG.

BTW, I have a four-pack and one, of MR 8, so I'm set for now too.

Wynona said:

I just had a thought . . .

Could it be possible that since Macrium is no longer handing out free Macrium Reflect, that they might lower the price a little bit? Just a WAG.

BTW, I have a four-pack and one, of MR 8, so I'm set for now too.

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I think they are removing the free Macrium... so they can raise the price.

Ghot said:

I think they are removing the free Macrium... so they can raise the price.

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We shall see when 9 comes out eventually.

And another WAG . . . since there's no longer a free version, a lot of folks will probably move elsewhere. Especially those who were thankful for the free version by buying multiple copies of the paid version.

Ghot said:

I think they are removing the free Macrium... so they can raise the price.

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The price has already gone up for V8 by around 10%.

The 4 pack licence discount has reduced by 25%.

So a 4 pack now costs 1.1×3 of old v8 compared with 1.0X2 i.e. effective increase of 65%.

You can be sure V9 wil not be lower than V8 cost.

Wynona said:

since there's no longer a free version, a lot of folks will probably move elsewhere

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Yep. That's the way it works. They need to balance the amount they charge with the risk of losing customers, and the quality of the program.

Everything now is more expensive. At least it is where I live. I would not expect software to be any different. Employers have to pay their people. I'm not furious with Macrium about this. They make a good product and it does what it does very well. Backups are important. Whether your data is worth some cost to you, is your call.

johnlgalt said:

You emphasis goes a long way to supporting my argument.

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Care to explain how?

johnlgalt said:

If you are then saying that without understanding the end user needs to not believe in the efficacy, you're treading on dangerous waters.

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The efficacy of a protection (any protection) is mainly determined by the user's capability to understand how it works, what its limitations are, how to use it and then use it accordingly.

johnlgalt said:

And, for the record, there are more fallacious arguments here.

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How so?

johnlgalt said:

In case you missed it, the requirements are for backups that can be restored.

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I just re-read every post that the OP made in this thread. As it turns out, the OP never wrote anything that could even remotely suggest that the only requirement is for backups that can be restored. Unreliable backup creation does not necessarily always imply that unreliable backups can not be restored. They very often can be, but that still doesn't magically make these backups reliable. Nor does observing the fact that Windows can still boot normally and applications appear to still work after the restore. That's just because any backup creation method that does not include a robust verification step is unreliable excepting only maybe if there exists a reliable way to work around this problem, i.e. by relying on IT admin skills to correctly identify and eliminate inconsistencies that are pertinent to why doing the restore can potentially be needed.

johnlgalt said:

The end user may not be hyper-critical about backups on the fly every period it can, but will be backing up at least regularly, weekly, if not more often.

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How frequently the end user will be backing up his/her Windows system partition is for the end user to decide. Personally, I, back it up only every once in a blue moon...

johnlgalt said:

However, the end user also doesn't have gobs of space in massive SANs to store these backups.

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Sure, but I have 37TB worth of external storage with only a few TB available free space on it, which is still way more than enough for me because... well, my system backups take up less than a few hundred GB in total.

johnlgalt said:

The end result is that there is not a long term storage facet to these backups - I seriously doubt anyone here is keeping more than 3 full system backups in storage for long term in any way, manner, or fashion.

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I usually keep them for a couple of years, simply because I'm too lazy to delete them. I never actually needed to restore anything BTW... I just make them just in case, only because doing a clean install would be too time consuming. I don't backup my personal files with the bootable ISO of Acronis or anything like that. It conveniently lets me exclude them all from image via its GUI, which Macrium Reflect (free or paid) does not let me do. At least not via its GUI, it doesn't, but I know that it can be done via editing the Windows registry. But as you probably could've guessed, I'm waa-aaaa-aaaaaaay too lazy for that. The same thing goes for the effort it takes to make sure that none of my personal files ever end up getting stored on my Windows system partition... so lazy it hurts. Although I convinced myself that I'm just selectively diligent.

johnlgalt said:

Disagree. I think you're reading too much into the needs of the home user versus the needs of a company, corporation or enterprise. End Users typically don't have local and federal laws to comply with concerning data retention, whereby long term storage actually becomes a critical consideration when it comes to making backups. Likewise, home users don't typically implement a mutli-faceted backup strategy, including off-site storage to remain in said compliance.

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I'm afraid I lost you. If backups aren't a critical consideration to you, then I guess you could always decide to simply stop making them... problem solved. LOL!

johnlgalt said:

So you're saying the use of the native Windows feature VSS is not reliable?

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It depends. If you can close every application excepting only those that you already know won't introduce the type of inconsistencies that these applications are unable to recover from, then maybe. If you already know that you can still remediate such inconsistencies, e.g. by reinstalling the (potentially) affected application(s) after the restore and/or by importing or re-applying their settings (if applicable), then maybe. It also may depend on what processes you've got running in the background like I earlier said. Further, I have witnessed first-hand that the hot backup creation had failed some time after it was started. This was due to a problem with the VSS, that I was able to fix, but the failed backup had already wasted so much of my time that I barely had enough time left to still be able to make the backup successfully. So, especially if you're doing it unattened or semi-unattended during those moments when you need to finish it on time, this might turn out to be more problematic than you originally had envisioned. But there can be other problems that relate to the VSS. VSS failure is listed under Software issues in this article:

johnlgalt said:

You're saying that Macrium, and other that make use of VSS to make these hot-backups, are not able to reliably verify the data?

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It is up to the end user to assure that none of the applications or background processes actively running on the system could potentially introduce problematic inconsistencies in the data that arrives inside these hot backups. Similarly, it is up to the end user to figure out what inconsistencies are or are not problematic enough to not still be acceptable, and, also similarly, it is up to the end user to, in an informed manner, decide on things like how severe is severe. But if this level of severity is largely unknown and cannot easily be validated and tested, then logically, you no longer are talking reliability. Because, then, wishful thinking would be the more accurate description.

johnlgalt said:

Sorry, but before I go believing random words like that I need proof that this is true. Unlike more home users, I *am* conversant in IT, having made it my career, and your arguments here are more circular than you realize, falling into your very own trap regarding fallacious argumentation.

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Practice before you preach,
If an application has no writer, the shadow copy will still occur and all of the data, in whatever form it is in at the time of the copy, will be included in the shadow copy. This means that there might be inconsistent data that is now contained in the shadow copy. This data inconsistency is caused by incomplete writes, data buffered in the application that is not written, or open files that are in the middle of a write operation. Even though the file system flushes all buffers prior to creating a shadow copy, the data on the disk can only be guaranteed to be crash-consistent if the application has completed all transactions and has written all of the data to the disk. (Data on disk is “crash-consistent” if it is the same as it would be after a system failure or power outage.)

If the computer has no applications that are enabled for the Volume Shadow Copy Service, the data in a shadow copy is considered to be in a “crash consistent” state. All files that were open will still exist, but are not guaranteed to be free of incomplete I/O operations or data corruption.

While the crash-consistent state does not fully deal with all the issues associated with defining a stable backup set,
{...}

Have a nice day!

You should pay a bit more attention. You're using articles written 14 years ago. and apply to Windows XP and Server 2003.

How Volume Shadow Copy Service Works​

Article 10/08/2009

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Perhaps more relevant would be the more current articles on VSS and relevant services.




And finally


Which links to several more.

Even for XP and 2003, there is an updated version of the VSCS dated this year available for download:


And how to configure it in the modern computing era:


With different configuration for both backup and restore:



And of course, backup strategies, including how it all works, on modern computer OSs:


It's great you've seen it fail - hell, any backup solution has the ability to fail. But referencing 14 year old information to prove a point when the difference between then and now relating to VSS is almost night and day is hardly a viable argument for what you're saying.

Sorry, but I still disagree, and particularly when there is still no evidence of a Macrium backup showing unreliability due to inherent software issues (versus misconfiguration).