Can any of the gurus on the forum make any sugestions about back up software. I'm running Vista and the auto backup is ok but i'd like somethin i can have a bit more control over.

Acronis True Image has been performing flawlessly for me for over 2 years, and I've had to restore twice after hard drive failures. Very highly configurable, and once it's set up it works without manual intervention.

I've also been using Acronis 8 Pro, for almost a year. I'm not quite as glowing, there have been a couple of glitches, but it's better than anything I've used in the past. I did some fairly extensive research when I was looking to buy, and it ended up on top.

Personally, I'd be more concerned about restoration than backup. Whatever you get, make sure that you can recover to a new system.... and test a restoration before you settle in.

I have also really liked True Image Echo Workstation. I'm going to have to find a newer equivalent now that Win 7 is out and True Image doesn't support it. Aparently Acronis no longer makes that exact product.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...ghlight=backup

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...ghlight=backup

I'd suggest looking in to some online solutions like Mozy. Acronis is great, but you have to remember to run it. Also, it's useless in the case of fires, flood, theft. For Mozy, you install the client and it automatically does incrementals on a pre-configured basis. As long as it is running, your data gets backed up.

Completely agree.

Mozy has saved me a couple of times.

A few more considerations for you or anyone else when dealing with backups:

1) Always check the backups when possible to ensure they have backed up what you wanted them to backup.
2) If you select incremental backups then make sure you keep all of the incremental sets. An alternative to this is to make full backups once a week and incrementals throughout the week.
3) If you plan on doing this long term make sure the software you choose is (a) paid for (b) has the backing of a major manufacturer and (c) you stick with it. In years to come there's no use going back to a backup set that you can't restore because you can't find the software.
4) Keep your backups safe and secure, preferably out of the house.

You don't have to remember to run it. It's scheduler is very easy to use, lets you set the number of savesets and the types of backups to keep (incremental, differential, complete), and automatically expires and deletes backups based on either age or remaining backup storage.

Online backups have their place, but if you need to restore your entire laptop (or desktop) quickly, nothing beats local storage. At least yet.

Some backup solutions, including Acronis, support differential backups. Only the previous full backup and the latest differential backup are required to rebuild a disk volume to the most current state; no need to restore a series of differentials.

If you've got the storage and time, though, a full nightly backup will get you back in business the quickest. I have about 75GB in use in my laptop and a 500GB USB2 drive connected to its docking station. With compression, each full backup takes approximately 60GB, so I keep at least 6-7 savesets around.

If you are planning to upgrade to windows 7, the backup and restore center is much improved over vista. It gives you a lot more control over files, locations, and you don't have to dedicate an entire external drive to a system backup, like you did in Vista.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/w...-up-your-files

I am using Acronis on my main home laptop, but I'm going to try the built-in version in win7 on the travel laptop when I get around to buying another external drive for the backups. There's nothing wrong with Acronis, but the newly improved built-in version in win7 is probably worth a try since the price is right.

I'm also backing up data files, music libraries, etc with an online backup. They augment each other. Redundancy is good with backups and there's other good reasons to use the online method in addition to the local method. The local method can be used to restore your system quickly. The online method gets you recent changes to files, and access to all your files when you are on the road.

-David

Thanks Guys,
Some really good sugestions.

I prefer NovaStor NovaBackup. Its disk imaging disaster recovery feature has helped me couple of times while reformatting my system.