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Backing up portable HDD

puma22
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Posted November 23, 2011 at 7:36PM

Hi, firstly apologies as I'm sure that this has been asked before, but I've trawled threads and tried different solutions...

My issue is that I keep all my important documents on a portable HDD so that I can swap between work, home and laptop easily. I have windows 7 as the main PC at home which backs up the PC great, BUT, my issue is that all my important stuff is on the portable.

So, can I set windows 7 to backup my portable HDD or can someone recommend good backup software that will do this (tried various ones but not found one that is easy and seamless)?

Cheers!

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robinofloxley

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Posted November 23, 2011 at 11:14PM

I don't recommend using W7 Backup or it's imaging for either your main computers or portable drives/other devices.

Easeus Todo Backup is excellent. Will allow Partition Images or files&folders Backups. Incremental/Differential backups and scheduling.

Backup to or from your computers to external drives. Doesn't matter for most software (except built-in W7!)

Many people also recommend Allway Sync. It's like Synctoy, except it is supposedly much better (may have a scheduler)

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robinofloxley

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Posted November 23, 2011 at 11:16PM

edit: Backup to or from your computers & external drives

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aqaqppoe

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Posted November 24, 2011 at 5:54AM

if you plan to uprade HDD to SSD(solid state drive)? i heard SSD is competitve than HDD, and i find a brand Renice SSD by www.b2cit.com, if anyone use the brand? it looks nice with good price and best after service:-)

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puma22

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Posted November 26, 2011 at 7:57AM

Thanks robinofloxley

I think I may have tried easeus before and not got on with it. it was a while ago so will give it another try.
The allway sync is not what I'm looking for - don't need to do this all I want is a backup of what's on the portable in case I lose it or it breaks.

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robinofloxley

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Posted November 26, 2011 at 9:14AM

Easeus been updated 2 or 3 times over last months (2.0, 3.0, 3.5 now)

Other alternativess:

Macrium Reflect Free Paragon Backup and Recovery Free Seagate Disc Wizard (free cut down Acronis) if any drive is a Seagate. Acronis WD Edition (free cut down) if any drive is Western digital

Acronis True Image (trial/pay)

If you still don't like Easeus, try Macrium next.

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robinofloxley

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Posted November 26, 2011 at 9:16AM

Other alternativess:

Macrium Reflect Free

Paragon Backup and Recovery Free

Seagate Disc Wizard (free cut down Acronis) if any drive is a Seagate.

Acronis WD Edition (free cut down) if any drive is Western digital

Acronis True Image (trial/pay)

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robinofloxley

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Posted November 28, 2011 at 7:57PM

Further Note on Macrium:

I had boot problems tonight and wanted to restore my MBR with W7 SYSTEM boot partition (not my main C:). Should have been a 2 minute job.

I notice that Macrium 5.0 is actually not very user friendly (if you are inexperienced)

It also refused to attempt restore except from CD PE disc. Then the restore failed from that while initializing.

Tried 4 different Images.

Fortunately I had an Easeus Image as well and that went fine.

Very strange. Never had any problems with Macrium 4.2 and earlier.

So I think at this time, my current favourite program is Easeus 3.5

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