Help With Backup

Longford Leader

Need advise please.

I have a desktop(xp) and laptop(vista) that are both connected to a 1tb NAS via my router.

I want to do a full & complete backup of each computer (a copy of everything,my data, my programs, my settings and the operating system)

What program is the best to use for a newbie?

Preferably something that can fully backup & fully restore through a wizard and schedule a weekly backup.

Willing to pay for a good program.

zweton

clonezilla:)

sandisk

I've been using acronis true image for years and find it great. It'll cost you a few quid but well worth it >> http://www.acronis.eu/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

Slippin Jimmy

Longford Leader wrote: »

Need advise please.

I have a desktop(xp) and laptop(vista) that are both connected to a 1tb NAS via my router.

I want to do a full & complete backup of each computer (a copy of everything,my data, my programs, my settings and the operating system)

What program is the best to use for a newbie?

Preferably something that can fully backup & fully restore through a wizard and schedule a weekly backup.

Willing to pay for a good program.

I need to back up all my files. Is it a certain type of hard drive that you need to connect to your router?

Longford Leader

sandisk wrote: »

I've been using acronis true image for years and find it great. It'll cost you a few quid but well worth it >> http://www.acronis.eu/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

Just downloaded the trial and doing an initial full backup.
seems to have what i need (image drives, make boot cd, recovery, etc)
Is the price once off or a yearly fee?

Duffff-Man wrote: »

I need to back up all my files. Is it a certain type of hard drive that you need to connect to your router?

you need to connect a NAS (Network Attached Storage) to your router, so all computers that are connected to your router can backup to the one drive.
See here http://www.dabs.com/blog/index.php/2011/01/12/the-benefits-of-nas/

vibe666

another vote for acronis, it'll do everything you need it to and is definitely worth the money imho.

the only possible issue might be with creating a usb 'rescue' boot disk that includes the network drivers for your PC(s) wich could prevent you from getting access to your backup files if you need to use the boot disk to restore your data. if your NAS has a usb connection to connect it to a PC if you need to then that might be an easy way around the problem if you have it.

an easy test is to create your usb rescue boot disk using acronis (any size disk will do, i think it only needs about 50mb) and then boot both PC's from it and see if you are able to access your backup files.

if not, if you have a full sized desktop or laptop usb hard drive, you *could* just copy your backup files to that from another machine if you ever actually need to do a restore.

personally, i hav a 2nd internal HDD in my PC which i use as a destination for my acronis backups and then have that mirrored to my NAS just in case and that works fine for me.

two thumbs up for acronis tho, i really like it, and that's coming from someone who used to manage corporate backups for almost a petabyte of enterprise data.