Thread: Back up advice needed

I'm after some advice on which back up software to go for.

My set up: I have 1 windows PC(2.5TB - full) and 1 server Linux PC(8TB -virtually empty) network connected.

What I want backed up is: torrent files(not the actual media), photos(11GB and building), music(400GB and building), all the settings of my current windows computer including emails, bookmarks, cookies and that sort of stuff - basically I need to be able to cope with any hard drive failure and still get all the stuff back, not the films, or tv though as I can easily download that all again as I'll still have the torrent files.

At the moment I don't have any sort of raid set up. My server is just acting like a huge external hard drive which has copies of my photos and music from my other pc. I'm also going to put another copy of this onto a HDD and take it to my brother in law's place accross town - meaning 2 copies on site and 1 off site copy of all precious data.
I don't think I need raid at all, I'd prefer to use the HDD space for actual storage not for mirroring.

Is there any software that would suit this at all? I'd rather have some way of at least copying the important stuff over to the server automatically so I don't forget one day when it matters!
Actually I know there is software available to do this but what do people favour and what would suit me best?

Macrium Reflect?
Acronis True Image?
Paragon?
Norton Ghost?
Easeus?
any other software?

Hey, you should check out CrashPlan I've been using it for months and it works pretty well, I have the paid version where it backs up all my data on their own servers, but the software is free to use on your own pc, and can also automatically back up your files online to another pc if you set it up that way. so if you have the connection/bandwitdh to support it you can automatically backup to your brother in law's pc. Its worth a look coz it can do pretty much everything you require and its free as long as you don't choose to use their servers to store your data. And its also pretty cheap if you do.

I'm using Acronis now and I've used Norton Ghost in the past. I prefer Acronis since it works as a continuous backup and I really don't have to do anything after the initial setup (don't know if Ghost does this)

I also just bought two Iomega Personal Cloud drives and sticking one at my place and one at my parent's place. That way all our computers are backed up in two separate places, one off site. This is a more expensive solution but since I'm pretty far from my parents this is a great way for me to manage and backup their computers remotely

Looks interesting Drauka, I'll check it out.
Thanks.

---------- Post added at 03:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:42 PM ----------

Originally Posted by newguy

I'm using Acronis now and I've used Norton Ghost in the past. I prefer Acronis since it works as a continuous backup and I really don't have to do anything after the initial setup (don't know if Ghost does this)

I also just bought two Iomega Personal Cloud drives and sticking one at my place and one at my parent's place. That way all our computers are backed up in two separate places, one off site. This is a more expensive solution but since I'm pretty far from my parents this is a great way for me to manage and backup their computers remotely

Those drives look good but cost a bit more than I was thinking of spending on this problem. And Acronis sounds like the sort of thing I need, any down side you've come accross yet?