Time Machine equivalent?

[SmilesRising]

Hello!

 

I've worked with quite a few Macbooks and I've always enjoyed the smooth process of backing up and restoring with Time Machine and I'm wondering if there is anything equivalent on Windows? I know that Windows has the "file history" thing but when I tried using it a while back it did not work at all..

 

Is there any software that can backup my entire drive to the cloud or an external drive from which I could restore everything to the way it was if my C: Drive would die?  

[LWM723]

Minitool Drivecopy

[SmilesRising]

4 hours ago, LWM723 said:

Minitool Drivecopy

So this software mirrors everything? so if my drive fails I can just pop the backup-drive in and im good to go again?

[mr moose]

I read the title and thought you meant a literal time machine equivalent.  I was going to say the closest thing I can come up with is that instead of waiting until you are an adult  and regret not listening to good advice, listen to it while you are young and you probably won't wish you had a time machine and to go back and fix it.

 

As far as a time machine equivalent goes,  I use macrium reflect and make a complete image of my important drives.  I believe it's bit more involved than time machine and you require the same space to store your back up as the drive, but it does mean that in the event of a catastrophic failure you have your entire PC from the last image taken.    EDIT: I should point out that you keep the image on an external drive or another PC on your network).

 

The other option is to buy a pre-built NAS and use their backup software that lets you choose all the folders and times it makes a backup.  This way if your PC dies,  you only have to reinstall programs, everything else (documents, music, files etc) can be restored using the same software.   This is a bit expensive, but it will allow you to do it for any PC on your network.

[SmilesRising]

4 hours ago, mr moose said:

I read the title and thought you meant a literal time machine equivalent.  I was going to say the closest thing I can come up with is that instead of waiting until you are an adult  and regret not listening to good advice, listen to it while you are young and you probably won't wish you had a time machine and to go back and fix it.

 

As far as a time machine equivalent goes,  I use macrium reflect and make a complete image of my important drives.  I believe it's bit more involved than time machine and you require the same space to store your back up as the drive, but it does mean that in the event of a catastrophic failure you have your entire PC from the last image taken.    EDIT: I should point out that you keep the image on an external drive or another PC on your network).

 

The other option is to buy a pre-built NAS and use their backup software that lets you choose all the folders and times it makes a backup.  This way if your PC dies,  you only have to reinstall programs, everything else (documents, music, files etc) can be restored using the same software.   This is a bit expensive, but it will allow you to do it for any PC on your network.

Haha, a real time machine sure would be great!

Does macrium backup regularly or do i have to remember to backup my drive once a week myself? I have my own NAS so I save it there then

[TetraSky]

There's a ton of softwares that can backup your stuff, be it from simple files all the way to an entire drive. Even Windows's built-in backup feature can somewhat do this well enough.x

 

I used to recommend Acronis True Image. Because it was fast, result in smaller backups than most and is easy to use, but they have also moved to a God damn yearly subscription model instead of a "buy once, keep forever" as they used to, so I can't in good conscience recommend them anymore.

 

 

Like others have mention, Macrium Reflect is good.

But right now I use Paragon Backup & Recovery. Also free and can do incremental/differential backups of select files, folders or complete drives on a schedule. Backup encryption, splitting(to save on DVDs for example) and what not, is also available. Interface took me a bit of time to get used to, though.

[Bitter]

Is there anything that can do scheduled incremental backups to a NAS or USB external drive that you'd all suggest?

[LWM723]

Cobian Backup, it's free.

[mr moose]

19 hours ago, SmilesRising said:

Haha, a real time machine sure would be great!

Does macrium backup regularly or do i have to remember to backup my drive once a week myself? I have my own NAS so I save it there then

No, you have to run macrium and do the image manually.  That's probably the worst thing about using it for backup's, however the best thing is it is a complete image of your drive so no reinstalling/downloading anything in the event of a drive failure.   What NAS do you have?  yes that is where you'd store the image files.

[SmilesRising]

On 12/20/2021 at 10:42 AM, mr moose said:

No, you have to run macrium and do the image manually.  That's probably the worst thing about using it for backup's, however the best thing is it is a complete image of your drive so no reinstalling/downloading anything in the event of a drive failure.   What NAS do you have?  yes that is where you'd store the image files.

my "nas" is just an old PC i have laying around with a 4tb HDD so nothing special really.. 

[mr moose]

19 minutes ago, SmilesRising said:

my "nas" is just an old PC i have laying around with a 4tb HDD so nothing special really.. 

Bugger, I was going to say that most of the mainstream NAS systems (synology, qnap, asustor, etc) have automatic backup software included with their products.