Solved What do people use to back up their data files on Windows 11?

Hello,

I currently use Synology to back up my pictures. For my data files, I have been using Acronis, but I am so tired of it failing. It has become unreliable. I could also use Synology to back up my data files but would like to keep my picture and data files backups separate.

What would be some recommendations. Is Macrium Reflect a good replacement? My data file backup destination is a NAS drive. Looking for a backup product that reliable, and easy to. Easy to use for the backup and if required, easy to use for any drive or individual file restores.

Thanks in advance.

Stu

Windows 11 Pro running with the latest updates

I use Macrium Reflect and it has never failed me, but I use it to back up everything.

I have separate System and Data drives.
I use Macrium Reflect on a schedule to do disk image backups every other day (incremental daily, differential weekly, full monthly) to
a local backup drive, and then copy the backup drive to a local NAS, and copy monthly backups to an offline USB drive in a fire safe.
I also use robocopy to do selective folder/file backups to my local NAS, and image those to an archive DVD that I store offsite.
So I have multiple copies of important files on multiple different backup media (NAS, USBdrive, DVDiso). Never lost an important file.

I too use Macrium Reflect. I also have it set to e-mail me in the event of any failure so I'm immediately aware of any problems. As an example, I have drives in an external array. That is my backup destination. If the array looses power, it doesn't simply turn on when power is restored. I have to press a button. The other day we had a brief power failure over night. When my PC turned on in the morning the external drives were not present so Reflect immediately informed me. I would have been completely unaware if not for Reflect.

Backups are critical to me. I have licensed 4 different backup programs so that I can constantly compare when new versions are released. Reflect seems, IMHO, to be the best of the lot.

You can use Macrium Reflect to back up "everything", including both system and data files. Many do that.

Or you can use separate applications....perhaps Macrium for system files and something like Free File Sync or Sync Back Free for data files.

I prefer the second method, mostly because the data file recovery procedure in Macrium isn't particularly elegant compared to Sync Back Free or Free File Sync. That might not matter to you at all if you very rarely attempt a data file recovery.

You can easily compare both methods and make your own decision.

I use Macium Reflect to back-up my 'system' files - OS, OEM executables & OEM installation files.

For my 'data' files - pictures, documents, etc - I use Live File Backup.

It can run in two modes -

- backup up your files on a predefined schedule - you configure it and and just let it run in background; and / or
- ad-hoc backups when you want to backup files in between the schedule you configure

Support is excellent via email from the developer and I would highly recommend it.

Macrium Reflect Home v8 for me

stuart253 said:

Looking for a backup product that reliable, and easy to.

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Just make sure not to rely only on automatic backups ony, I lost files because of it. The task can get corrupted.
Nothing beats copy/paste time to time. I use OneDrive, then IceDrive, GDrive, external disk, thumb drives.

stuart253 said:

I have been using Acronis, but I am so tired of it failing.

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Using imaging for data is overkill, I use Hasleo Backup Suite just for OS partition (30 secs for 50GB).