Backup Software - Hate Roxio
 

I have Roxio software for the sole purpose of backing up my notebook. I don't know if it is the notebook or the software but like one out of three CD's works for me. I go through a lot of those things that way.

What other software do people use AND like?

Another pet peeve with Roxio is that the Drag to Disc function seems to periodically make my CD ROM just freak out and start clicking when there is no CD in it.

It also refuses to update. I download the update from their website (takes forever) and when it is starting to actually install the software it tells me it cannot find one of the CAB files. Very annoying.

Put mildly, Roxio is crap. Used to use them, but their support is non-existent. I now use Acronis TrueImage http://www.acronis.com , which is really good for making exact copies of your hard-drive, but slow. Also use SyncBack http://www.2brightsparks.com to sync with an external hard drive.

I use stomp's backup my pc

http://www.stompsoft.com/backupmypc.html

to dvd's, get a full back up every now and then, and an incremental runs overnight every night

I may change that because the backup hard drives are getting so incredibly inexpensive.....

It's been good for me, no problems at all.

I just want to pick the directories to backup as opposed to shagging the entire HD. Does Acronis allow for that?

There's also ntbackup.exe, it's called "Microsoft Backup", and it's already included with your windows operating system. Yes, it allows you to select entire directories, or individual files in those directories.

It doesn't, that I'm aware of, make exact copies (images) of your entire HD.

Stomp is wonderful. Stomp is not stomp, stomp is really veritas(which was seagate).

Seagate got out of the software business because companies were selling crummy tape backup systems, and then suing seagate for failures.

Veritas got out, I think, so it could go after the big guys, and since there is very little difference between the basic little guy, and big guy, they somehow set up this dopy Stomp name to avoid the price complaint problem.(Stomp 2005 is about $50, and probably less if one shops, while Veritas for really important people can run $5000).

The Veritas logo is still on my v4.85 from 2003.

Very fast, and runs on lots of windows platforms.

I use Novaback (http://www.novastor.com) for full backups and the previously mentioned Syncback (new version just came out last Friday) for incremental backups to flash drives.

Both have worked well for me - Novaback has its own formatting routine, if I recall correctly. Both allow you to tag individual directories and/or files within those directories.