Hi
I want to install backup and hard disc recovery software on my laptop and two PCs.
I am impressed with Acronis True Image Home 2009 but this requires a seperate license for each machine.
Franka, there are oodles of backup software out there, some free as noted below, and others commercial. I used ATI2009 and it has some advantages. It's relatively fast but in contrast to the paragon literature, not that user friendly.
For example, I downloaded the manual and it's about 180 pages! Now, perhaps I'm just simple minded, but any manual that huge for a comparatively simple app is waaaay too long! Sure enough, I tried to understand it and gave up.
One plus: paragon/ATI2009 does have a very good forum where many questions are answered.
But when it comes to backups, I am anal obessive paranoid!
For me, backup programs must have three features:
1-easy to use and understand [ATI gets a C grade on this--it's confusing]
2-easy to update as needed [ATI gets another C--it goes into way too much detail on system vs incremental vs full vs something else, and the explanations are poor.
Secondly, it puts the "tib" file "someplace".
3- this is a showstopper! It MUST be easy to use when recovery is needed.
I give ATI2009 an F on this one.
After finishing all the steps, i rebooted to the ATI recovery disk, and it COULD NOT FIND THE BACKUPS MADE FIVE MINUTES EARLIER!
So, it was worthless!
After putzing for hours, and help from the acronis forum, plus tech help, I finally got it to work.
But backups must be simple to restore,. and you need to test it to ensure it actually works.
This is my grief with imaging or ghosting software. The steps you have to take to see it work are way too time consuming and frustrating.
Personally, I prefer Casper or Vice Versa Pro 2 that make file by file copies of the entire drive. No images, no ghosting, no special boot disks to get them working.
I would say the majority of users make backups, but never test them to see if they worked.
Sorry for the long post, but this subject is critical to me, and most others.