Backup Software Recommendations?

[hansolo77]

Well, here we are again.  Go to turn on my computer, and it doesn't work.  Just a black screen (BIOS prompt?) telling me to pick the correct boot device, insert a disk or reboot.  Not sure what happened.  I tried all the tricks; various disk utilities, Windows Recovery CD's, etc.  I think the problem came out of the storm we had one night.  My main PC is on a low wattage UPC ($50 at Home Depot, claims to be 315 minutes but is really only like 6).  The result of a sudden power outage, and my configuration of 10-minutes then shutdown meant that the computer instantly started to shut down once on the battery and it drained faster than it took to do the safe shutdown.  So in essence, it's more like I just pulled the plug.  Windows was unable to recover, apparently blew out the boot sector.  On the motherboard side of things, the BIOS got reset (which I noticed because it was dated 01/01/2000 and 00:13 minutes at 2 in the afternoon.  I've spent the last few days reacquiring a good copy of the BIOS, rebuilding the settings, and repartitioning/reinstalling Windows 10.  Been a trip, let me tell ya.  I'm finally at a point where EVERYTHING is setup with the latest drivers, an no additional software yet.  I want to make a backup, and this is where my dilemma is.

In the past, if you look through my various threads, I was using software that is built in as a part of the WHS (Windows Home Server) package.  I've since moved on to bigger and better things, now using UnRaid.  The problem now is that WHS is no longer an option, and I need a different set of tools.  In a more recent past, although still a long time ago, I was using Acronis to make drive images.  I went back through my files and found the registration key I had bought for it.  Installed the software and it says my key is no longer valid.  Went back to their website and found that my "Lifetime" key was supposed to be grandfathered into their new "Annual" license method, but because I failed to submit a claim during the window that option was available, I'm not SOL.  I can buy a new key, and supply them with monies every year.  That seems a little unnecessary to me.  Since my key is no longer valid without a new charge, I'm moving on to other things.

The last day or so I heard about a utility called "Macrium Reflect" which is free (sorta).  It is free so long as you don't use some of the advanced features like a Daily Incremental Backup.  I figured sure, why not?  Get the free version, try it out, and buy the licensed version if it does what I need it to do.  Well... it does and it doesn't.  Sure, it makes a direct image of your drive, partitions and all, and can backup to any location you want.  However, the moment you decide you want to make a schedule, to have it backup weekly for instance, your computer stops going to sleep.  Sure, you can FORCE it to go to sleep by pressing the keyboard key or using the mouse and telling it to sleep.  But this is pointless.  I want a system that is sleeping, wakes up at 1am to backup, then goes back to sleep.  Apparently, the software is buggy enough that there's lots of people complaining about their computers not even waking up.  I just want it to sleep, so I don't even know if I have that wake up problem or not.  BUT.. I was smart about it.  I made my "Day One" backup before creating a schedule.  So I attempted to RESTORE that backup.  Macrium has software in place to help you build a Recovery Environment to a CD, another drive, or in my case a USB Flash Drive.  Plug the drive in, tell the BIOS to boot from it, a pseudo-Windows loads just enough to have Macrium load, and you pick your backup to recover.  WRONG....  Turns out my server is unreachable.  Sure, the NIC has a proper IP address, but the path is unavailable with some "unknown reason".  It has an option to open up a File Manager and attempt to map a drive, so I did that.  Couldn't connect to the server at all.  It also has a command prompt, so I attempted to PING the server.. Yup, no problem there.  So I give up.  This software is useless to me.  I tried to go into their forums to ask for support just to be stuck behind a pay wall (support is a PAID bonus, not available to free users).  Then I found a way to contact the devs directly via a ticket system.  Just to find out once I got the ticket all written that once again, support is a PAID bonus and they won't even let me submit it.  So, yeah.

What I'm looking for... incase that's all TL:DR (just found out that means To Long:Didn't Read!) I'm looking for a good backup software.  I don't mind paying for it, provided it's not an annual fee.  One time only.  As for features, all I really need is something that care wake my computer up while sleeping, do it's backup, then quietly return to sleep.  That may be tricky because even Macrium has a setting to tell it to sleep when it's done (which doesn't work).  I just want it to sleep on it's own, not because a program forces it to (incase I'm still awake and using it).  As for type of backups, as long as I can keep a regular backup, I'll be happy.  Sure, daily backups, keeping the last 7th day and the last month's backup would be nice.  But honestly, if I can just have a scheduled backup, that's good enough.  As for recovery, I have to be able to restore over the network.  Having a backup on another connected drive is ok, until you face a problem where all your drives are zapped at the same time.

Thanks' you guys for continuing to be an inspiration and source for PC troubleshooting and experience!

[Draco1962]

Have you looked into Aomei? They have a free version and a Pro upgrade with lifetime upgrades for $49.99 per single workstation license.

[hansolo77]

I’ll check them out. It’s nice to try things free and then buy. My ticket I submitted got response “sorry if we helped every free person we couldn’t help our paid people.”  That’s lowsy.  I did manage to figure out how to recover a Macrium backup but it’s stupid. Required me to set SMB1 and map a network drive before I could access it. It’s not worth going to all that trouble, especially if I can’t make a proper schedule.