Best FREE backup software

[Zahzi]

I currently have an SSD that I use as my boot drive, and an HDD that I use for other files. I have a Seagate backup plus 3TB to use as my backup drive. It doesn't seem to be compatible with windows backup because of the size of the drive, and the software that seagate includes doesn't impress me. It stores ~2GB files in my appdata folder for every backup, and it cant restore anything without these files being there, and this is a problem considering im on a rather small SSD. I am looking for a good  FREE backup program (not a free trial, or something that will spam me to upgrade 24/7) that:
- can be scheduled to run at a specific time every day
- can backup both of my drives (and ALL files on them)
- can be used to easily restore a specific file, or the whole system
- can support a 3 TB drive to backup to
- doesn't spam me with upgrade options or anything else
- lets me select specific folders (or the whole drive) to backup
- is reliable
- FREE

Thanks in advance!

[ShadowCaptain]

Honestly I wouldn't entrust my backup with a piece of rubbish free software

 

Windows 8.1 doesnt have a drive limit so you could upgrade

 

I can recommend Acrhonis though you can get it pretty cheap

 

ALSO.. do you only have that single 3tb drive to back up all your data? is everything stored on there?

[Profquast]

I use SyncBackFree to mirror folders to my NAS and I believe it has zipped backup options too. It has a lot of options and it isn't really needed to upgrade to pro unless you want some windows server features.

[Zahzi]

Honestly I wouldn't entrust my backup with a piece of rubbish free software

 

Windows 8.1 doesnt have a drive limit so you could upgrade

 

I can recommend Acrhonis though you can get it pretty cheap

 

ALSO.. do you only have that single 3tb drive to back up all your data? is everything stored on there?

 

Is windows backup in 8.1 any good? Would you say it would be better to invest in upgrading to 8.1 or to invest in a backup software for 7?

 

Yes, I just have the 3 TB drive currently. Im not really worried about having an off site drive; I just have it incase a drive fails

[vembutech]

Hi,

 

Check out this;

 

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/downloads/windows/2/backup-recovery/

[Guest]

You should look at Macrium, EaseUs and AOEMI. These are the most common backups solutions that I see around. I personaly use Macrium Free and I love it. I use it to image my boot drive, and Crashplan for my individual/personal files.

[nicolas_cote]

You should look at Macrium, EaseUs and AOEMI. These are the most common backups solutions that I see around. I personaly use Macrium Free and I love it. I use it to image my boot drive, and Crashplan for my individual/personal files.

 

Is there one of the programs in that list that allows to do a periodic backup of a certain directory?

 

Say for example i only want to backup work/school files and not my music and movie files. I would like to backup the files say every time i power down the PC.  I use to work at a place that had a similar software, software would start when you shut down the pc, scan the drives you wanted to backup and copy only the files that had been modified and not the whole drive.

 

I have a 120 g ssd as my main boot drive plus a 1tb hdd as a storage drive, backup drive would be a 500 g hdd that i scavenged from my laptop.

 

 

Thanks  a bunch!

[Guest]

Is there one of the programs in that list that allows to do a periodic backup of a certain directory?

 

Say for example i only want to backup work/school files and not my music and movie files. I would like to backup the files say every time i power down the PC.  I use to work at a place that had a similar software, software would start when you shut down the pc, scan the drives you wanted to backup and copy only the files that had been modified and not the whole drive.

 

I have a 120 g ssd as my main boot drive plus a 1tb hdd as a storage drive, backup drive would be a 500 g hdd that i scavenged from my laptop.

 

 

Thanks  a bunch!

 

If you want only to backup files and folders, I would recommend looking at Crashplan. Softwares such as Macrium, EaseUs and AOEMI can also make an image of your drives, which is useful if you need to restore a previous backup of your OS/Windows. Crashplan monitors files continuously. So if you modify a file, it will back it up within few minutes. There is a file version history feature which is nice if you need to restore a previous version of a file (which can happen a lot for school documents).

 

Crashplan is a backup solution for files and that's it. The Free version allows you to select which files and folders you want to backup (work/school and not music/movie), then copy them to either a local drive, network drive or even a friend's computer over the Internet. For example, my parents backup their files using Crashplan to my NAS over Internet, for free.

 

I pay for Crashplan yearly and this gives me unlimited storage in the Crashplan's cloud. I first do a backup of selected files and folders to my NAS and then send those files to the cloud as well. If I ever need to restore a file, I use my NAS first because it will be faster and save me Internet bandwith (I'm in Canada!!). If I am at work, I use Crashplan's website to access my files. If my house ever burn down and I loose my NAS, I got the Crashplan cloud to save my bacon. I don't care about Windows and softwares, but I care about all the photos of my family.

 

I also use Macrium free version to create a simple image of my OS manually each 2 weeks or so. 

[Satlen]

I hear CrashPlan is a really great program, it is free if you just do local backup I think.

[nicolas_cote]

Thanks! @spookyneo