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9 Best Windows Backup Software for [Free and Paid].
If there are too many outages in service, buy accordingly. Speed: Speed, in many cases, is far more dependent upon your broadband connection than that of the online service, though the geographical location of the storage and the equipment in between can make a significant difference.
Check the location of the data servers if speed is important to you. Or, just give the trial a whirl and see if you can live with it. Additionally, if you intend to back up to a newly purchased external hard drive, check out the software that ships with it. Seagate, WD, and others provide backup utilities that are adequate for the average user.
Some programs automatically select the appropriate files if you use the Windows library folders Documents, Photos, Videos, etc. Boot media: Should your system crash completely, you need an alternate way to boot and run the recovery software.
Any backup program should be able to create a bootable optical disc or USB thumb drive. Some will also create a restore partition on your hard drive, which can be used instead if the hard drive is still operational. Any backup program worth its salt allows you to schedule backups.
Any backup program you use should allow you to retain several previous backups, or with file backup, previous versions of the file. The better software will retain and cull older backups according to criteria you establish. Optical support: Every backup program supports hard drives, but as obsolete as they may seem, DVDs and Blu-ray discs are great archive media. Online support: An offsite copy of your data is a hedge against physical disasters such as flood, fire, and power surges.
Online storage services are a great way to maintain an offsite copy of your data. Automated backup to create set-and-forget tasks in daily, weekly, or monthly mode. File sync or backup to cloud , NAS, local disk, or external hard drive, etc. System Backup Easily backup systems and make a copy of all contents in the system drive, including the Windows operating system, applications, and custom settings without interrupting your work.
Quickly backup files to an external hard drive , including office files, photos, videos, music, and program files. Also support backing up files on network or NAS. Create a disk image of the specified hard disk. Support internal disk, external hard drive, flash drive, and other storage devices that are recognized by Windows. Backup certain partitions or volumes to a compressed image file using this backup freeware.
Set up a schedule to automatically backup system and data, especially great for users who want to create backups at a lesser frequency or have multiple backup schedules e. Only back up the changed or newly added data since the last backup via incremental backup, saving you time and disk space. System Restore Easily restore system partition in native Windows or from bootable disc and ensure system is bootable after restoration.
Rapidly restore files and folders that are lost, deleted or corrupted, or restore to an earlier time from backup images. Restore partition or volume to the point you ever backup. Create an exact duplication of your partition or volume, and deploy the copy to another partition or hard drive.
Explore and Check Image Mount a backup image as a virtual partition so that you can browse its contents in Windows Explorer. Check backup images’ integrity to ensure they can be restored successfully. You are allowed to backup to shared folder and restore from network with bootable media. Besides, you can manually add additional drivers when creating Win PE bootable disc. Export all backup tasks to a safe place and import them when necessary. View what operations the program has done and record the events that occur during a backup process.
Support to set an email address, and then AOMEI Backupper can send the backup results to your email when the backup or the scheduled backup is complete.
Use an industry leading compression algorithm to compress backup images for taking up less disk space. It should be able to run on all versions of Windows, including Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 8, and Windows 7. Free Easis Drive Cloning is extremely easy to use. You’ll walk through a wizard with any option you choose.
The first will ask you to choose the drive you wish to back up and where to save the IMG file. The Restore Image option is just the opposite of the first, and the last selection lets you clone a drive to another without having to first create an image.
The bad thing about Free Easis Drive Cloning is that it backs up everything , even the unused, free space of the drive. We tested it in Windows 10 and Windows 8 without running into any problems. Ocster Backup permits backing up files and folders to any local or external hard drive.
When adding content to back up, you must browse for each file and folder you want to be added. While you are able to select multiple files at once, you can’t quickly add numerous folders like some of the other backup programs from this list are able to do. You can encrypt a backup with Ocster Backup, set up a daily or weekly schedule, and exclude content by name, extension, or folder. Also, another plus is that the original directory structure is still present when you restore the files, which makes it rather simple to navigate through them.
Ocster Backup is limited in that it doesn’t support backing up to a network drive, and restoring files is an all or nothing deal where you must restore everything at once. Ashampoo Backup has replaced Ocster Backup, but you can still get the last released version through the link above. You can optionally save to more than one location if you want multiple places to store your files.
Backups can be compressed using one of three modes: password-protected, encrypted, and set up to use a schedule. The log files made with AceBackup can optionally be emailed on the event of an error or chosen to be sent even on successful backups.
Something we don’t like is that some of the options in this program aren’t described, which can leave you wondering what certain settings will do when they are enabled. We successfully used AceBackup in Windows 10, but it should work just as well in Windows 11, Windows 8, and Windows 7. FBackup allows the backup of individual files and whole folders even from your Google Drive or Dropbox account to be saved to a local, external, or network folder, as well as to those same online file storage services.
An easy to use wizard guides you through the backup process and includes preset locations you can choose to back up, like the Documents and Pictures folder, Microsoft Outlook, and Google Chrome settings.
In addition, FBackup lets you add your own files and folders to a backup job. You can exclude certain data from a job by specifying a word in the folder or file name, as well as the type of file extension. Two backup types are supported in the free edition: Full and Mirror. A full backup compresses every file into ZIP folders, while a mirror creates an exact replica of the files in non-compressed form. Both allow encryption. Backup jobs are created using a built-in interface that corresponds with the Task Scheduler service in Windows to run a backup at times like once, weekly, at logon, or when idle.
Once a job completes, FBackup can be set to hibernate, sleep, shutdown, or log off Windows. A backup can be restored using a simple restore utility that comes built-in, which lets you restore everything or individual files to their original location or a new one.
You also have the option to restore only the latest version of the files, or to run filters to restore specific file types. While testing FBackup, we found that it downloaded quickly but took a bit longer than usual to install. It can also be installed on Windows Server , , , , and HDClone Free Edition can back up an entire disk or a select partition, to an image file.
Using the Setup for Windows download will let the program run inside Windows. You’re also able to back up one disk or partition to another, but it will overwrite the data on the destination drive. Some features, like choosing a compression level and encrypting a backup, appear to be supported but are unfortunately only available in the paid version.
With Macrium Reflect, partitions can be backed up to an image file or copied directly to another drive. This file can be saved to a local drive, network share, external drive, or burned directly to a disc. You can even add more than one backup location to build a fail-safe in the event that a destination becomes invalid. You can schedule a full backup on a schedule so every day, week, month, or year, a backup will be made of any drive, including the one with Windows installed.
A backup job can also be scheduled to run at startup or log on. To restore a backed up image to a drive with Windows installed, you must use the Macrium Reflect program to build a Windows or Linux rescue disc, both of which can restore an MRIMG file. You can also mount the backup as a virtual drive that mimics a local one, allowing you to browse through the backed up files and folders and copy out anything you want.
The program should work on all versions of Windows. We tested it in Windows 10 and Windows 8. Determine if you are running a bit or bit version of Windows to know which option you should choose on the download page.
Make sure to select one of the blue download links since the red ones are for the paid editions. A backup image can be built into one file or separated into chunks for easier placement on media like CDs and DVDs. You have the option to back up a drive’s used data or the used and unused portions of the disk. Restoring a backup is really easy with ODIN because you just select the disk that should be restored and then load the backup file.
Freebyte Backup can back up multiple folders at a time to any local, external, or network drive. A backup can’t be compressed or encrypted with this program. Scheduling isn’t built-in either, but you can make a few changes to how the program launches as well as use an external scheduling program to make it work. You can filter a backup job so that files with particular extensions get copied, leaving out all the rest. There’s also an option to only back up files that have been modified after a particular date and time, as well as a toggle to turn on incremental backups.
Freebyte Backup is said to work only with Windows Vista, XP, and older versions of Windows, but we tested it in Windows 10 and 8 without any issues.
Freebyte Backup downloads as a ZIP file. Inside is the portable version FBBackup. CloneZilla Live is a bootable disc that can back up an entire hard drive to either an image file or another disk. This program is text-based, so you won’t find regular menu options or buttons. You can compress a backup image, split it into custom sizes, and even check a hard drive for errors using a free hard drive testing tool before creating an image.
Restoring a backup with CloneZilla Live involves taking the regular backup process steps but doing so in reverse. It sounds confusing, but following the on-screen instructions makes it pretty easy. Karen’s Replicator is easy to use, simple folder backup utility that supports a local, external, or network drive as a backup destination. Data is backed up using a regular copy method without encryption or password options, which means you can browse through a backup like you would any other folder in Explorer.
Options let you exclude subfolders from a backup, filter out certain files by their extension, avoid backing up particular directories, and schedule backup jobs. You can also decide whether or not Karen’s Replicator should delete files from a backup if they’re removed from the source folder.
The interface of Karen’s Replicator is a bit outdated but it didn’t interfere with backups or our ability to find settings. Personal Backup can back up data to a folder on an external or local drive, FTP site, or network share.
When selecting the files to be backed up, Personal Backup only allows single files to be added at a time. You can keep adding more, but only one can actually be chosen at a time, which can slow down the process of creating a backup job. You can , however, select whole folders, and context menu integration is supported.
A backup can be built as an archive for each and every file, creating many ZIP files, or as a single archive which contains all the data.
Options are available for encryption, compression, and file types that should be excluded from compression. Personal Backup allows a total of 16 backup jobs to be created, each of which can have their own scheduling options and incremental or differential backup type.
To use Personal Backup, you must download the proper bit or bit version that matches your version of Windows. We find Personal Backup to be very cluttered, making it hard to find what you’re looking for because nearly all the settings are simply thrown into the program interface with seemingly no organization.
However, it does update a lot, which is a good sign that it’s constantly trying to improve. The bit version runs on Windows 11, 10, 8, and 7, as well as Windows Server R2, , , and Windows Vista and XP users can install the bit version.
Incremental backups are also supported. Settings are available to compress a backup and manage how much splitting, if any, should be done to cut the backup into smaller pieces. Restoring data is as easy as selecting the backup image and choosing the drive to restore it to. Also, the setup file is over MB, so it could take some time to finish downloading.
Take note that you need to register for a free user account on their website before you can fully use the program. That, or log in via another account when you first open the program, like your Google account. There is no restore function, and everything that’s on the destination disk is wiped clean before XXCLONE beings backing up the source drive’s files.
You’re able to adjust the speed of the backup as well as make the destination drive bootable. We tested this program in Windows 10, 8 and 7, but it should also work for Windows 11, Vista, and XP. PING is a program that runs straight off bootable media like a disc. It lets you back up one or more partitions to a file. There isn’t a graphical interface when using PING, so you must be somewhat comfortable with a text-only navigation screen to use this program.
You have the option to back up partitions to a local or external drive as well as to a network share or FTP server. When selecting the correct source and destination drive for a backup or restore, it’s actually a bit difficult to determine which drive is which.
– The best free backup software and services: Where is it safe to skimp? | PCWorld
I made several backups to check how EaseUS Todo impacts computer performance and am happy to report that the program runs peacefully in the background, without affecting other processes. To restore a backed up image to a drive with Windows installed, you must use the Macrium Reflect program to build a Windows or Linux rescue disc, both of which can restore an MRIMG file. Google Drive isn’t a traditional backup tool by any means, it is cloud-based and just what you are able to back up will depend on how much online Google storage you have available.