EaseUS Todo Backup Free

[CU]

Anyone use EaseUS Todo Backup Free? It seems to do more than most free options. What are its short comings compared to other free options including Window 7/8's built in backup program. I am manly interested in using it to do a full system image backup every month and incremental or differential every few days. Not really sure if I want incremental or differential yet, but know I want one of them to speed up backups between the monthly full refresh backup.

http://www.easeus.com/backup-software/comparison/tb-free.html

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Are you performing full backups (boot plus data)?

 

[CU]

Yes, it would be a full backup of my C: drive.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I've used it---maybe 2 years ago.

As I recall, it worked OK, but took up a lot of space on my drive---several hundred MB??

I was familiar with Macrium at the time and saw no reason to not continue to use Macrium. Smaller footprint, excellent interface, quick, problem-free in my experience.

Unless you have significant space issues, I'd just do periodic full images, rather than incrementals or differentials. I'd rather it took a few more minutes than introduce a complication.

A Macrium image at default compression will take up roughly half the size of the partitions contained in the image---C partition of 200 GB, half full, would result in an image file of 50 GB, give or take.

Sounds like you may have Windows and data on the same partition? Any chance you can change that? I'd hate to rely on imaging to backup data.

You also need to image your "System Reserved" partition if you have one---or whatever other partitions may be marked as "system" in Windows Disk Management. That's where your boot files live. You can include System Reserved and C in a single image file or do them separately. I'd probably do them separately and just do a one-time image of System Reserved. Then C maybe monthly after that.

 

[CU]

I looked at Macrium, but I don't see where the free version does any incremental or differential backup. My C drive is 400-500gig of data. And, yes I need to clean it up. So, I would need 200+ gig for each image. That would add up quick if I make one every few days. Not to mention wear and tear on the disk. Thus the reason for full backup every month and smaller incremental or differential every few days. That way I would have at least a good full image every month and assuming everything works the incremental or differential would mean my backup would be even more up to date.

Yeah I have data and Windows on the same partition. I already use CrashPlan to remote backup really important documents and pictures. The other data is mostly junk that has collected over the years and several games that I should probably uninstall.

Not sure about other partitions I will have to look. If there is one, Windows 7 created it when I installed, because I don't remember manually doing it.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Not sure about other partitions I will have to look. If there is one, Windows 7 created it when I installed, because I don't remember manually doing it.

Yeah, I think you are right--you have to use a paid version of Macrium if you want to do incrementals or differentials.

Have you looked at Aomei? They have an app called "Backupper" that has a lot of functionality and is said to work well.

A default Windows install creates "System Reserved" and C.

You can install Windows and end up with just C alone and it works fine, but it's an extra step. The advantage is that you don't have to image anything but C to restore Windows. I think all you give up is Bitlocker, if you care about that.

So you should look in Windows Disk Management to confirm your partition structure and which are marked "system".

But OEM manufacturers can put boot files pretty much anywhere, often in recovery partitions.

 

[Ryland]

I use Easus backup free on my laptop and the paid for workstation version on my main desktop. I havent had any issues with it in the last few years.

 

[Ketchup]

I use it all the time to clone drives (both physical and virtual). Works great!

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Is there some sort of need to have more than two generations of backups? I use to drives and just clone one every other week. This means my current has an exact clone, only two weeks old. I could swap them more often, as needed, especially since drives are cheap.

This means I do not have to worry about reinstalling things. BTW, I use Macrium Reflect and it works great.

 

[CU]

I think two generations of backups are fine. My plan was to keep two full backups, 1 per month. And have the incremental or differential backups in between them just to keep them more up to date.

 

[CU]

When does the "System Reserved" partition change? Ie. how often should I backup it up?

 

[Ketchup]

Unless you make a change to your boot loader/manager (add another os, etc), or change your BitLocker settings, that partition should not change.

 

[Emulex]

I'd use VEAAM Backup free! it is full featured backup to network device software with support for all major windows o/s. and it just works! Free!

http://www.veeam.com/blog/announcing-veeam-endpoint-backup-free.html

 

[CU]

VEAAM Backup free is Beta. Not sure about trusting my backups to Beta software.

 

[Emulex]

It's in use by a ton of IT professionals already! Not some who knows where it will be tomorrow free backup software that is stagnating!

I use it to backup my veeam vm server and Vcenter 5 vm's since you can't really backup those safely through veeam! (vss)

 

[CU]

I installed EaseUS Todo Backup last night and configured it to keep no more than two months of backups. It runs every 3 days doing incremental backups with the first one of every month being a full backup. I manually triggered a full backup last night and it took 2.5hrs to backup 366gig. It compressed it down to 260gig using normal compression.

The scheduling and backup retention process seemed pretty configurable to me. Also when you choose system backup it knows to backup C:/ and *:/ (System Reserved Partition), so you don't have to add that part in. Now to sit backup and let it run and hope I never have to use it. With my C drive pushing 4.5 years of run time I had to start backing it up. I really should have started sooner as I was just asking for trouble with my drive having that many hours on it.

 

[Dulanic]

EaseUS backup has been pretty nice overall for me. I use it on 4 of my PC's and all backup to a USB drive on my router, it takes longer, but it is seamless and never had any issues. It has been a set it and forget it thing and I've used it once to restore a PC fully without any problems.

 

[CU]

Do you mean it takes longer because you backup to a usb drive on your router or because EaseUs backup is slow? I forgot to mention I am backing up to a 2.0 USB external drive connected to my computer. That may explain my long backup time also.

Nice to hear you used it for a restore and it worked. I made an iso for the linux and WinPE recovery disk also. Figured if one didn't work I could always try the other.

 

[CU]

Just ran the calculations and when I copied 260gig in 2.5hours I was getting about 29MB/s. Which means I was pretty much maxing my USB 2.0 external out. I should try it again tonight and bump the compression up. Since I am IO constrained I may can use the wasted cpu cycles to compress the data more and not have to move so much data across the slow USB 2.0 interface thus resulting in a net reduction in backup time.