Best backup solution for windows pcs

[biggyk]

All my pcs in the house are windows 10 and im looking for the best way to backup a few folders on each to freenas. Just wanted to know what you would recommend for a somewhat newbie to the game? I looked at crashplan but cant find a good tutorial on setting it up. I did install the client on one of my desktops. Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[joeschmuck]

Since this isn't a FreeNAS question, moved to Off Topic.

But I use Acronis True Image on my Windows PCs to backup my hard drives to FreeNAS. This is a paid program but I've been using it for so many years and it just works. You can set it up to backup files or the entire hard drive. I use the entire hard drive because in my experience you typically are not looking for a single file to recover but the entire drive crashes or the system becomes corrupt and vice reinstalling Windows, you can reinstall your drive image and it's super fast. I'm talking under an hour (well it depends on how large your hard drive is of course). If you did need to restore a single file then you can mount the backup image and recover the file(s) you desire. Again, it's a paid program.

As for other Windows based backup programs, there are many out on the web that are free. I like the Microsoft SyncToy and then you create a rule to automatically run it. It will make a copy of your data that has changed, not backups. This is a great program if you only want to have a copy of what resides on your system since the last run of SyncToy.

You will find others out there. As for FreeNAS, just map a drive letter on the computer to a SMB share and you backup to that drive letter. Acronis can use the drive path "\\freenas\backups\computer_1\" for example, not all free software can do that. However I use mapped drives for Acronis because I do check my backups to see how they are running.

 

[Alecmascot]

All my pcs in the house are windows 10 and im looking for the best way to backup a few folders on each to freenas. Just wanted to know what you would recommend for a somewhat newbie to the game? I looked at crashplan but cant find a good tutorial on setting it up. I did install the client on one of my desktops. Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

I use URBackup. Install the server element in a jail. Map some storage to the jail. Install a client on each windows PC and off you go. Does image backups as well so you can bare-metal restore; as well as the usual file backups. No mapping on the client pcs and runs completely in the background.
And it's free...best thing since sliced bread !

 

[joeschmuck]

I use URBackup.

Okay, now I have something else I want to test out and see how well it runs. Since it runs in background I'm curious how well it would handle the client computer being shut down during a backup operation. I need to test it out and see how resilient it is (wife proof).

 

[Alecmascot]

Okay, now I have something else I want to test out and see how well it runs. Since it runs in background I'm curious how well it would handle the client computer being shut down during a backup operation. I need to test it out and see how resilient it is (wife proof).

Mine has survived so far :)
It just sorts itself out if it is interrupted.
http://tinyurl.com/ydbjs8zu

 

[biggyk]

Thanks guys il try out both and see what happens.

 

[biggyk]

https://www.urbackup.org/freenasserverinstall.html

used this to install but after running
make install -j4

I get some errors
/usr/bin/install -c -m 644 ./server-license.txt "/usr/local/share/urbackup/server-license.txt"
chown urbackup:urbackup "/usr/local/share/urbackup"
chown: urbackup: illegal group name
*** [install-data-local] Error code 1

make[2]: stopped in /urbackup-server-2.1.19
--- install-exec-local ---
pw useradd urbackup -q -g urbackup -d "/usr/local/var/urbackup" -m -s /usr/bin/false || true
chown urbackup:urbackup "/usr/local/var/urbackup"
1 error

make[2]: stopped in /urbackup-server-2.1.19
*** [install-am] Error code 2

make[1]: stopped in /urbackup-server-2.1.19
1 error

make[1]: stopped in /urbackup-server-2.1.19
*** [install-recursive] Error code 1

make: stopped in /urbackup-server-2.1.19
1 error

make: stopped in /urbackup-server-2.1.19

 

[joeschmuck]

Run the make again, should run without errors the second time. Note: it will run quick.

EDIT: I tried the rest of the script, looks like the first echo command will fail. You are better off using a text editor. I use "ee" and then you can manually create the /etc/rc.local file with the data in the echo commands. Type ee /etc/rc.local and it should look like this when you are done:

Press "Esc"ape and then select to save the file. Lastly you will still need to run chmod +x /etc/rc.local and then you should be done. I have not used this program yet but I understand what is going on here so these commands should work.

 

[Stux]

I use URBackup. Install the server element in a jail. Map some storage to the jail. Install a client on each windows PC and off you go. Does image backups as well so you can bare-metal restore; as well as the usual file backups. No mapping on the client pcs and runs completely in the background.
And it's free...best thing since sliced bread !

One neat feature is it says it does file deduplication across clients. No need to waste server storage on a dozen different copies of Windows... without enabling ZFS dedupe.

 

[biggyk]

Run the make again, should run without errors the second time. Note: it will run quick.

EDIT: I tried the rest of the script, looks like the first echo command will fail. You are better off using a text editor. I use "ee" and then you can manually create the /etc/rc.local file with the data in the echo commands. Type ee /etc/rc.local and it should look like this when you are done:
View attachment 18975

Press "Esc"ape and then select to save the file. Lastly you will still need to run chmod +x /etc/rc.local and then you should be done. I have not used this program yet but I understand what is going on here so these commands should work.

Thanks working now and so far so good.

One neat feature is it says it does file deduplication across clients. No need to waste server storage on a dozen different copies of Windows... without enabling ZFS dedupe.

Im still somewhat newb so not sure what that means but seems cool. Have to look into that.

 

[diedrichg]

Tagged. *note to self, look into URBackup.

 

[diedrichg]

Space efficient. If multiple clients have the same files the UrBackup server saves them only once, leading to reduced storage requirements.

So. I can have the same file on two computers and have it backup to the same place on the server? If the file is changed on client A, does the change get propagated to client B?

 

[Alecmascot]

So. I can have the same file on two computers and have it backup to the same place on the server? If the file is changed on client A, does the change get propagated to client B?

No. There is a backup for each client. If a file is the same, a link is created to save backing up multiple copies of the same file. On the next incremental backup, if a file has changed then the link is removed and each client has its own copy of the file, which is of course different..

 

[garym]

All my pcs in the house are windows 10 and im looking for the best way to backup a few folders on each to freenas. Just wanted to know what you would recommend for a somewhat newbie to the game? I looked at crashplan but cant find a good tutorial on setting it up. I did install the client on one of my desktops. Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

I use Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows (free).
Works great. Does both image and file backups. Go to Veeam.com look for free tools.

 

[HolyK]

Few years ago i was using Acronis True Image but the new version and its GUI is (was?) just a piece of crap. I've experienced random freezes/crashes of the GUI on multiple machines. I've faced corrupted backups (event the verification was OK). More over it messes with the drivers and when you uninstall the software you need to manually clean up the mess. Moreover sandbox feature was removed. I am not sure if the "issues" above are still there or if they fixed it already but i was so pi**ed off so i stopped using this software completely

Currently i am using Macrium Home and i am happy with it. It has everything i need and i like their support team - recent new major release (v7) had some flaws but they released updates/fixes very quickly. Also they implemented couple of functions based on feedback.

 

[biggyk]

Few years ago i was using Acronis True Image but the new version and its GUI is (was?) just a piece of crap. I've experienced random freezes/crashes of the GUI on multiple machines. I've faced corrupted backups (event the verification was OK). More over it messes with the drivers and when you uninstall the software you need to manually clean up the mess. Moreover sandbox feature was removed. I am not sure if the "issues" above are still there or if they fixed it already but i was so pi**ed off so i stopped using this software completely

Currently i am using Macrium Home and i am happy with it. It has everything i need and i like their support team - recent new major release (v7) had some flaws but they released updates/fixes very quickly. Also they implemented couple of functions based on feedback.

Iv been trying out urbackup for a week now. One of my desktops insists on doing image backups when I have the client side settings disabled and image back for that pc disabled. Been a pain. Going to look at the one you use.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

 

[joeschmuck]

I hear you on the problems Acronis created for itself. I liked it much better 5+ years ago when it was designed to be used by someone who had a clue and it just worked much nicer. The 2015 version has worked well for me and I used it yersterday to restore a Win10Pro image I created last year, and it even did it over the network from FreeNAS.

 

[biggyk]

Is it possible to backup a computer remotely to my freenas with Acronis?

 

[joeschmuck]

Is it possible to backup a computer remotely to my freenas with Acronis?

I want to say yes however you should read the features of Acronis [at their website] and also visit the Acronis forums before you buy just to ensure the product will do what you want it to do.

 

[diedrichg]

I used Clonezilla for my wife's Hackintosh because it can do bit-level cloning and do it over the network to my FreeNAS machine. I would highly recommend it for such purposes.

I am familiar with Macrium Home because it's tried and true, but I decided to try AOMEI Backupper last week. It went well, I too can do bit-level over the network but I just used it to do my desktop's Windows partition and MBR and all went well.