Buffalo BACKUP Proogram>unreliable: any alterantives

[vdotmatrix]

   

I bought 2 Buffalo products a small portable HD for my laptop and a 300GB HD for use on myhome network.

 

Each came with the dreadful MEMEO experiemant.

 

I have had this for about a year now and besides the harddrives I have no real dependable backup program for these HD.

 

We all biought these to protect our data and have peace of mind and i read the, at the time, the description of the MEMEO product and for a while it seemed to work very well. I mean the initial 48 hour process of adding the files to the HD was a way to a means of backing up my stuff-FINE...but then

 

I spent most of my time with the MEMEO customer service forum doing the same old thing: send logs, updating, recreating backup plans.

 

I have 2 separate system one a vista and the other an XP-pro and they both react the same way.

 

MY QUESTION: WHAT BACKUP PROGRAM DOES BUFFALO RECOMMEND INSTEAD OF THIS MEMEO FREE SOFTWARE THAT CAME WITH THEIR PRODUCT THAT IS REALIABLE AND STABLE?

[Kameran]

Windows xp pro and vista both have built-in backup programs.

[tridy]

   

I was researching it myself, and so far I have found the following alternatives (just my preference):

 

option 1 - freeware: Comodo Backup

option 2 - commercial: Acronis True Image Home

 

 

 

[Unhappy09]

   

I use smartsyncpro and have had no problems. For about $39 you get 3 licences so you can put one on each computer. The best part about this program and maybe others do it but I dont know, is that you can set it up to save the last 1,2,3,4, how ever many copies depending on the space on your hard drive of the files that you delete. So say it does that back up and in my case I do alot of synchronizing between my computer to my NAS then from the NAS to a USB drive attached to my computer, it checks the laptop and sees if there are any new files on there that are not on the NAS, if so it copies the new one and deletes the old ones. It will store 1 copie of the deleted file until the next time I delete that same file. It all sounds kind of complicated but its not the program is really easy to use. I have been using it for over 3 years an no problems.

[DumbTechDude]

   

As the MOD said, Vista and XP Pro come with their own backup program.  But you said backing up for use on your home network?  What does that mean?  Do you mean you are planning to back up over the net, is your desktop the server and your laptop the client?  Perhaps you can enlighten us what backup solution are you trying to achieve.  All backup software work to satisfy a different range of clientele, so no one software will work the same. 

 

However, as a guide, there are mainly 3 backup classes.

 

1, Virtualized imaging backup (creating disk images) ie Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost are 2 commonly used software (strengths)  Carbon Copy Cloner on the Mac.  We use Roxio Back On Track, though I had seen Acronis at work and am impressed with its restore function.

 

2, File block level backup and synchronization with shadow copy ability (recommended) (single file/folders) ie SyncBack or anything that can copy while the files are being used.

 

3, Time line backup is a new thing; Apple Time Machine on the Mac is an example.  GE-soft Genie Timeline is the equivalent for the PC or Roxio Back On Track.  This allows restoration of drive snapshots based on a predetermined time line you choose.

 

Reliable backup is what you want to achieve.  For our office setup, I use a combination of Carbon Copy Cloner on the Mac with Time Machine.  On the PC, we use Roxio Back On Track to create a boot image of our server as well as a time line snapshot (system point recovery and is very useful if you installed software and decided not to keep it).  With back track feature, I simply back track to the last snapshot before the installation.  This works so well especially with malware stuff -- we've been saved by 7 catastrophic attacks.  Syncback to create file block level backup between the server media disk and our Drobo with error checking.  For the client level, we like Genie Timeline as it provides a no-nonsense time line restoration of each individual file (Excel, Power Point etc) for an instant recovery just like Time Machine.  The back up software run only the server -- client only runs the Time Line software.  A built-in back up scheduler is helpful. 

 

Hope this helps in your quest..