I use:
in windows machines - SyncBack Freeware V3.2.18.0
http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html
and windows scheduler/batchfile to backup up the SQL Server databases:

del /Q E:DATAprimaverabackupmp.BAK
Sqlcmd -S DNLPRIMAVERADNL6 -Q " BACKUP DATABASE %1 TO DISK ='E:DATAprimaverabackupmp.BAK'"
MOVE /Y E:DATAprimaverabackupmp.BAK E:DATAprimaverabackup%1_db_%2.BAK

in linux - I use the webmin -> System->Filesystem Backup, which copies a directory (and its subdirectories) into a tar zipped file

Pro: because it uses tar, it backups linux files names (that are not allowed in windows) into a windows NDAS

Con: takes too long to see what is inside tar file (2Gb)

Currenty using Nero BackItUp (ver 1.0)

Pros: comes with Nero (free), does a good job for simple backup tasks, once backup is done, the directory structure is well maintained and easy to browse to restore selected files.

Cons: quite limited, no encryption (I think v2.0 does encrypt)

I like your idea of reviewing backup software. I'd get a lot of value from a product that would do the following:
- keeps directories in sync on two disks (not complete mirror, just selected directories). No need for real time, once a day/week be good enough
- handles file versioning (keep the last 2 or 3 versions of any given file)
- performs backup to disk, CD/DVD, spans multiple volumes, offers strong encryption for CD/DVD
- handles all the flavors (differential, incremental, full)

Looking forward to your products review.
Thanks,
Remy

I use Acronis TrueImage Home. I take daily incremental backups of four computers on a five day rotation and save them to network shares. I then use GoodSync on the computer with the network shares to copy the backups to a removable disk. I then take that disk off site once a week and replace it with the last disk moved off site. If my home location burns down, etc., then at most I lose a week of data.

I like TrueImage because it's pretty easy to use and has a nice feature set. To "rebuild" a computer, I can just put in the rescue CD or load the application and tell it to load the desired image. I can also open an image and select certain files to restore. If I sell a drive, I can use the rescue CD to "wipe" the drive using an algorithm of choice, (e.g. 5 passes of writing random data to the entire disk).

I recently upgraded to version 11 and the "Try and Decide" feature is great. This allows you to turn on "Try and Decide", install some software or make some changes, and then you can either throw away those changes and revert back to the state before the modifications, or commit them to disk.

There are a few drawbacks, though. I want to only keep 7 backup files around to conserve disk space and the "backup location" setting allows you to create limits based on number of files, disk space used, and/or number of days to keep a file around. I am having some problems getting those limits to be acknowledged and am working with support to resolve this. I've had this problem for quite a while even on previous versions of TrueImage, but am just now getting around to contacting support about it. The TrueImage forums show that I'm not the only person with this issue.

Another problem is that Try and Decide automatically reverts to the last state on reboot. If software requires a reboot to complete installation, then you can't use Try and Decide. Instead, you can take a manual backup, install, then load that backup if you don't want to keep the changes.

Finally, I've had some problems in the past with hardware compatibility with the Linux kernel used by the software. I think the last issue I had was with a JMicron ATA controller on an Asus P5B-VM motherboard. I had to turn off the JMicron controller (to which the CD-ROM was attached) in the BIOS before doing any restores. I am no longer using that MB and am not having any current hardware issues.

I use Mozy online for windows. It's $5 a month for unlimited backups. I'm not worried about how long the backup takes nor am I worried about the time it takes to restore. If I need a quick restore I can always order a few DVD's for an inexpensive price. They take care of encryption using a 448 bit key and SSL for the transfer.

I also keep a sync'd copy on a local computer. For that I use MS SyncToy. It does the job well, but doesn't do any file versioning or encryption.

Both Mozy and SyncToy can be scheduled for your particular backup strategy.

Vice Versa Pro 2 from http://www.tgrmn.com/. This is a very good program. I have been using VVP for a couple of years now after trying lots of other programs to manage my backup, replication, sychronization needs. Nothing else came close. I wish there was a Linux version.

Works really well and simple to use and restore a file.

SyncBackSE from 2BrightSparks for Windows is almost as indispensable as rsync on *nix.

SuperDuper, ChronoSync, Mozy on Mac; SyncBackSE, Mozy on Windows

Windows Home Server seems to work quite well for WinXP. A significant improvement over using the built-in Windows Backup to an external hard drive. Was able to perform a bare-medal restore quickly and easily.

Kinda standard enterprise backup software. Windows Hosts have Agents installed. SQL is backing up to files, which then are picked up by standard file backup. Unix servers, one is running the Agent, others are linked via NFS to it.

I use Carbonite (http://www.carbonite.com/) online backup software and service.
I decided to test online backup because firstly my internet connection is now fast and reliable and secondly the client software has been around long enough to become reliable and secure. Clearly online backup has the advantage of the backup being automatically placed at a secure remote location for zero effort. The disadvantages are equally obvious. In the end I tested two and both worked well. I favoured Carbonite because it was better focused for me, specifically making backup simple and effortless, rather than trying to add many other features. It is also worth pointing out the pricing advantage of no restriction on backup size and price in US$ for a UK resident. The recent upgrade also allows access to old file versions.
There are more sophisticated solutions out there, but in the end all I want is zero effort, reliable, secure and remote backup at a sensible price.

Using OneCare on two machines at home. I am really intrigued with how Windows Home Server does their backups with client machines and would like to switch to a Linux flavor of that since I already have an under used Ubuntu server running 24/7 that could do this sort of work.

I've tried quite a few (Bacula, BackupPC, SyncBac, so on) I've finally broken down to using a few custom scripts and SAMBA. I have one linuxe PC that maps a folder to the admin share (namec$ in windows terms) using the login information in the line. Then I have a cron job to TAR whatever I want to keep.

For my servers I use the built in backup, and have the .bak file offloaded to a NAS.

In enterprise I've used both Windows Backup, and currently I use Symantec Backup Exec. I've never liked the "best practice" for backing up, I just back up data for the most part, I would rather rebuild a system than deal with trying to rebuild the OS to the way it was. Just be sure to grab your program configureation files if you go this way.

I'm a TSM admin at work, but I just finished my ESX/Storage environment at home, so I am hoping you could review both Bacula and BackupPC.

I've been working with my clients and telling them about a piece of software that no one even mentioned here. I even wrote a post about it:

The software is called Cobian backup and is an awesome piece of software. It runs as a windows service and can schedule backups at any time. I think they just released version 9. I haven't had a chance to look it over yet, but it can only get better.

I hope this helps in deciding a backup/restore software plan. :-)

L8R,
JD

Includes 4 pc's with the license. I use 3 currently... my primary, my wife's primary, my mother's primary (she lives 50 miles away. doesn't matter).

Great prog.

When you do the ESX backups, I would suggest doing a backup on the guest OS itself. If you do ever have to bring it back, you will then know why. (More so if you only need a file or two rather than the whole guest OS.) I've never had much luck with VMWare snapshots, but granted I haven't had as much time as I would have liked to test them out.

Snapshots/Drive Backups are great if you need the system back up five minutes after a crash, but as I said, they can get really big really fast.. We have some of the biggest SAN's you can get, and couldn't maintain snapshots of the majority of our servers.

At work in business environments, I stick to BackupExec 11d to tape - solid, reliable, easy to use.

At home, I personally don't really back much up per-say, but for friends and family I tell them to back up to a CD or DVD every month or two depending on their needs, and sync their documents directories to a USB key or another PC using Bounceback or AllwaySync.

I think if you're going to write an article on backup software, it's important to make mention of a few best practices and recovery scenarios. The backup 'strategy' can be just as important as the software itself. I've helped a few people over the years who run a small business out of their home and they've 'forget' that a backup on a DVD or USB key is useless if you don't have some sort of secondary computer to be able to work on when the main system is down. Definately write something (even just a paragraph or who) to speak to 'OK, you've backed up your system/files, now what?'. There always something to be said about a bunch of files sitting on a DVD and no PC to access them.

I consider imaging a system important as well. Again, if the PC goes down there's something to be said about sticking in an image and being back up and running in about 20 minutes with a freshly imaged machine.

My favorite is Retrospect - http://www.emcinsignia.com/pro...roexpress/
I got it with my Maxtor One Touch a few years ago and using it ever since.
I've tried some free backup softwares but non had the flexibility of Retrospect.

Network: 1 Terastation for working file storage, 1 Windows Server NAS as full backup to TS and 1 workstation; each as a 500MB USB drive. The user workstations backup to their own USB drives using XP backup software. Since our storage needs are not terribly great, we back up the TS and NAS weekly to the USB drives using the OS backup software. Each night, the TS is synced with the NAS using Second Copy and the TS is backed up to the workstation USB drive with Retrospect. Second Copy is very friendly and easy to understand. In comparison, Retrospect's interface is a little clumsier at first, but it is also easy to use. We are running the older versions of these programs.

Since I long ago exceeded the amount of data for an affordable home backup system, I do disk to disk backup using a NetGear SC101 and IBM's Tivoli Continuous Data Protection for Files.

mozy for remote, SyncToy NAS for local

I have used UltraBac - www.ultrabac.com - . I really like the customer support!!! Also check the image backup option.

Another vote for SyncBack SE. This program will intelligently compare both directory structures, and only copy the files that have changed, and will even prune files on the backup that have been deleted from the source. It also has a command-line interface, so I wrote a PERL script to kick off the right backup profile based on the date. The advantage of this is that the backup is just a copy of your directory structure. This means that you do NOT need any special software to get your data back. Just mount the drive and copy away. Note: I *HATE* proprietary backup formats. Having your backup be just copies of your important files makes recovery dead easy and foolproof.

For my Windows boxes I use Bacula, for *nix I use rsnapshot.

Time Machine, Retrospect, Acronis

Creates a "trueimage" of your hard drive(s).
Easily Restores a complete partition or selected files.
Scheduled incremental backups of changed data are a snap.

Nothing more. Well, sometimes Ghost :-)

I use a multi-tiered backup strategy.
At the beginning of each month I use Ghost to take a full image of the system and store it on a local file server.
Each day I use SecondCopy to make incremental file level backups to the same local file server.
I also run Mozy for off-site backups at all critical data.
Two or three times a year I write DVDs of all data and store them in my safe deposit box.
It is a bit excessive, but it's fairly automated and I haven't lost any data yet.

Work:
Backup Exec for our servers. Backups go to a JBOD in our server room, with a mirror in a secondary server room in another building. BE is a bit persnickity, but way better than ArcServe (which we used to use, and which I loathe).

Home:
Time Machine for my Mac; SilverKeeper for my wife's Mac. Both backups go to the same drive which stays in the country, providing off-site backup of sorts. But since we're only in the country on weekends, we could potentially lose a week's work. So to counteract that, I use version control for my current projects (Subversion mostly, but I'm migrating to Bazaar), which I mirror to an external hard drive with SilverKeeper. SilverKeeper, itself, is extremely weak, but it does what I want (snapshots of my home directory) and it's free.

For data backup I like my data accessible fast without special tools/software
I keep my backup simple,
- encrypt sensitive files
- keep all the data files under same drive (d:) or directory
Run sync job twice a week (how difficult is it to click a button?) and files synced to external NAS
This way if my notebook/pc crash I can access my data immediately from NAS.
For offsite backup, at the moment it's another NAS. Although I can live with DVD-RW at the
moment.

For OS disk,
I use Drive XML to create drive image in combination with Windows PE for boot disk.

pros: simple, file based backup, works acorss windows/linux/freebsd, works over network: own protocol, as well as http, supports secure transfers
cons: sometimes gets confused with filenames, international chars gets foobared on Windows, no support for backing up registry on windows

Usually I do initial image of install, using Ghost or Acronis TrueImage, and then just setup
cronjobs to rsync all the files. Time to time update the image to include freshly added soft.

I purchased the Qnap TS 209 based on your review of the TS 209 pro (very similar units) and find in great for manual backups and file serving. My only complaint is the automated backup software included with the system. Although simple to use, it lacks a few functions such as designating specific directories for files to be backed up to.

The title says it all :-) An easy little program which is started by crontab.

Free, multi-platform, maintenance-free.
For bare-metal recovery I used to swear by mondorescue. Haven't used it in a while, though.

http://www.backup4all.com/

SuperDuper for my Macs at home and Syncback on my Windows laptop I use for work. BTW, I use SyncBack for a lot more than just backup: synchronising directories with our main server, copying to portable drives etc.

I back up 4 computers nightly, and 3 more every other night to miirrored local network storage servers. Cobian does all the script handling to do WOL on the computers, including the storage, since all computers except a very low power laptop are off all night (eco-friendly, yes). It handles all types of backups (NOT mirror's) including incremental, differential and full as sets, and uses zip compression so size is good, but recovery is even better - no special software needed!

I used Retrospect for years. It is reliable an unobtrusive. You can back up to external USB or set up a machine on your network to backup all the others. It supports multiple platforms. But since EMC bought Dantz, it has become increasingly enterprise-oriented and less home user friendly.

I recently built a Windows Home Server and am pretty happy with it. It does the backups, contains the backup storage, and does more, like remote access from the Internet. The only drawback with WHS is that WHS shares are not backed up! They can only be duplicated. Very odd decision by Microsoft.

WHS for local LAN PCs - with local firewire HD bakcup of the WHS while also having remote site backup of the WHS. (3 Step Backup Method)

i use a BAT file for DOS with a bunch of xcopy commands and exclusions...

i use acronis to backup

I use Retrospect on Windows server to backup multiple workstations and two servers on USB drives that are swapped offsite. I hpe your reviews will look at small business solutions for sites with and without a server. A particular issue is the backup of huge (> 2GB) user email files, and the 'throttling' of the backup software such that it can run while the user is actively using their machine.

I tried the Mirra backup server (now owned by Seagate). The client software had a dreadful impact on the user experience.

I use Acronis TrueImage 11 to backup to a NAS box.

What I like about it particularly is the install CD is also a boot CD and allows me to still backup over the network to a drive share on my Synology NAS device. This is great for taking initial snapshots after installing a PC as no software needs to be installed on the PC itself.

I run a small business and backup as follows:

Main Server (at work) runs a Robocopy script
as a Service to mirror data over a
|
m0n0wall VPN to a
|
Mirror Server (at home) that runs an AT/Robocopy script
as Service to time backup all data (M-F, monthly) to a
|
Backup Server (at home)


Main Server, Mirror Server and Backup Server are cheap PC’s
running Windows.

m0n0wall runs on a pair of WRAP 1e-2’s
(thanks SmallNetBuilder for showing me how).

Took a while to set up, but requires almost no intervention.
Currently backing up about 30Gig of data.

Used to use Ghost Enterprise for it's network capabilities, but Acronis is so much better, and their tech support is quite helpful.

I work from home, I use a laptop, and 2 other PCs with VMWARE for testing. I also use a single drive Buffalo Linkstation with Gigabit connection as my NAS. Based on your review of the Synology DS-207, I am buying it this week. I use Acronis for imaging, SyncBack for folder syncing and backup routines. For long term storage, I just burn the really important stuff to DVD R or DL discs. SyncBack has realy been great. For $30, you get reliable automation, scheduling and even folder syncing. It uses little resources, has almost no footprint. I love it. I do not install Acronis on my systems because the fewer programs you install, the better IMO. I typically just run from a Recovery Boot disk and image to a spare HD or my NAS.

I have been using Acronis True Image for several years. It performs well and has been reliable.

I have several Mac's and a couple PC's, with the Mac's holding the bulk of my important data.
I use Super Duper to make full drive bootable incremental backups to an external firewire drive of my main Mac.
I also use TimeMachine on my main system to a separate internal drive, have not actually restored anything from it yet, and really only use it as an additional fully automatic backup.

Offsite backups of my photo library to another house.

I really need to look at a simple automatic offsite backup though.