dc2000
Member
- Messages
- 69
- Location
- Portland, OR
Hi everyone:
First let me share the bad experience that I had while using one of the major brands of software for the local backup -- Acronis True Image 2014. I purchased and was using their software since 2014. I set it up to make incremental backups of my local files to an external hard drive, as well as make an image of my disk C to another external hard drive. The settings in the program also allowed me to automatically remove old backups when space was needed.
This scheme seems to have worked until about a month ago when my external disk got filled up and I started seeing error messages of disk being full via the popup balloons. This infuriated me since the only reason I was using Acronis software was to make it clean up old backups in the first place. That was the first time that I posted a question on Acronis form, that went nowhere. (In that thread I also discovered that I couldn't delete old backups even manually.) So I thought, OK, obviously other users may not know what is wrong so I decided to contact Acronis tech support instead. Little did I know, that it actually cost $20 to contact their support about any issue after the initial 90 day period since the software was purchased. What?! That's right. You have to pay them to fix it I was so incensed by it that I even tweeted to Acronis, and got this response.
At this point I was curious to get to the bottom of it. Upon further digging into Acronis True Image I discovered a very erratic behavior, and namely, that the main process of the software was not closing after I closed its UI. It continued running, using significant number of CPU clocks & disk. Here's my other post with a screen capture of what was happening.
Upon even further digging into it, I learned that Acronis is actually a Russian company that for some reason is based in US. (That explained their barbaric approach to software tech support by charging for it.) I obviously did not know all this when I purchased their software. Now I'm seriously concerned with entrusting it to back up my data.
So now, my question. Can you recommend a local backup solution to do the following:
1. Be developed/run in a Western country? (Sorry, but no Russia, China, etc.)
2. Do the following:
- Let me set up a schedule for backups, example: Daily at 2 a.m.
- Allow to create and later do incremental image backups of my disk C:, the one with the operating system.
- Allow to do incremental backups of select folders. For instance, I may want to back up D:\My Special Files and D:\My other documents from disk D but not the rest of the files on that disk.
- Allow for automatic removal of old backups when external disk is full.
I would appreciate if someone could give their recommendations based on your personal experience.
Thank you!
First let me share the bad experience that I had while using one of the major brands of software for the local backup -- Acronis True Image 2014. I purchased and was using their software since 2014. I set it up to make incremental backups of my local files to an external hard drive, as well as make an image of my disk C to another external hard drive. The settings in the program also allowed me to automatically remove old backups when space was needed.
This scheme seems to have worked until about a month ago when my external disk got filled up and I started seeing error messages of disk being full via the popup balloons. This infuriated me since the only reason I was using Acronis software was to make it clean up old backups in the first place. That was the first time that I posted a question on Acronis form, that went nowhere. (In that thread I also discovered that I couldn't delete old backups even manually.) So I thought, OK, obviously other users may not know what is wrong so I decided to contact Acronis tech support instead. Little did I know, that it actually cost $20 to contact their support about any issue after the initial 90 day period since the software was purchased. What?! That's right. You have to pay them to fix it I was so incensed by it that I even tweeted to Acronis, and got this response.
At this point I was curious to get to the bottom of it. Upon further digging into Acronis True Image I discovered a very erratic behavior, and namely, that the main process of the software was not closing after I closed its UI. It continued running, using significant number of CPU clocks & disk. Here's my other post with a screen capture of what was happening.
Upon even further digging into it, I learned that Acronis is actually a Russian company that for some reason is based in US. (That explained their barbaric approach to software tech support by charging for it.) I obviously did not know all this when I purchased their software. Now I'm seriously concerned with entrusting it to back up my data.
So now, my question. Can you recommend a local backup solution to do the following:
1. Be developed/run in a Western country? (Sorry, but no Russia, China, etc.)
2. Do the following:
- Let me set up a schedule for backups, example: Daily at 2 a.m.
- Allow to create and later do incremental image backups of my disk C:, the one with the operating system.
- Allow to do incremental backups of select folders. For instance, I may want to back up D:\My Special Files and D:\My other documents from disk D but not the rest of the files on that disk.
- Allow for automatic removal of old backups when external disk is full.
I would appreciate if someone could give their recommendations based on your personal experience.
Thank you!
My Computer
System One
-
- OS
- Windows 8.1 Pro
- Computer type
- PC/Desktop
- System Manufacturer/Model
- Dell XPS 8700 (customized)
- CPU
- Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40GHz
- Motherboard
- Intel Z87
- Memory
- 32 GB
- Graphics Card(s)
- Haswell on-board, 2 GB VDRAM
- Sound Card
- Haswell on-board
- Monitor(s) Displays
- Acer / DVI
- Screen Resolution
- 1680x1050
- Hard Drives
- C: Mushkin Scorpion PCle SSD, 222 GB
D: Samsung SSD 840-series, 238 GB
E: Samsung SSD 840 eVo, 500 GB
F: WD (Red) HDD, 2 TB
- PSU
- Dell standard
- Case
- Dell standard
- Cooling
- Dell standard
- Keyboard
- Logitech K120
- Mouse
- Infrared wired mouse from Microsoft
- Internet Speed
- Comcast DSL
- Browser
- Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, IE
- Antivirus
- Windows 8 built-in