Hi, guys. I wanted to get everyone’s thoughts and opinions on what I should use for personal data backup.
Here’s the background:
I had originally been backing up everything using an online service, but some time ago, my ISP instituted a monthly bandwidth cap, so this became impractical. I decided I would use the online backup for only my most irreplaceable files, and a traditional external HD for a full backup.
My problem now is: picking the software for the full backup.
- I tried Acronis TrueImage, but its backups seem fragile. Once it tries to consolidate incremental backups, or even if I just change a setting, then the backups suddenly start failing.
- I tried the built-in Windows Backup, but it doesn’t recognize when files have been moved, renamed, or deleted, so the backup becomes full of duplicates, which makes restoring painful or corrupted.
- I went low-tech and tried 7-Zip, since it can synchronize archives with any updates to my files, but I couldn’t control where it puts the temp archive, and I don’t have the space on my OS drive for a 200GB temp file.
- Now I’m trying Microsoft’s SyncToy, but it’s a huge performance hog. While it’s running, I can’t even move the mouse without a 30 second lag time.
I’m so tired of my terrible choices, and I’m hoping people here have some solid recommendations to try.