The best backup software will not only provide you with the ability to store accurate copies of your files and folders, but it will also give you access to more comprehensive management tools for your saved data.
You run the danger of losing all of your documents and data if your hard drive crashes, therefore it is very necessary to have some kind of backup software in place, regardless of whether you use your computer for work or for personal reasons.
Although there are cloud backup solutions accessible for general use, such as Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive, it is preferable not to rely on just one backup option at a time. In a perfect world, any backup made to the cloud would also be supported by another alternative, such as an external hard drive.
However, attempting to coordinate everything together may be a real nuisance. You don’t want to have to manually copy all of your files and folders to another backup simply because a few of them have been modified, so you want to avoid having to do that.
This is especially important considering that you don’t want it to complicate your document management, particularly when utilizing file management to exchange files with other people securely.
The good news is in this article we will focus on a variety of free backup software solutions and even paid solutions that attempt to achieve precisely this, by making it possible for you to effortlessly and automatically set up different backups as and when you require them.
Best Backup Software
Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office
This comprehensive backup software known as Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office, which was formerly known as Acronis True Image, makes the claim that users would “never lose another file.”
This software helps you to backup files or backup data on your local disk. Acronis also enables cloud storage, so it can be accessed from anywhere. In only two simple clicks, it is also able to do the tasks like disk cloning and disk imaging for the system disk of your computer.
Acronis Cyber Protect Home software protects users’ data from increasingly common ransomware and cybercrime issues. Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office includes a technology called anti-ransomware that not only detects but also has the ability to undo any unlawful encryption that was performed on a computer’s hard disk.
In addition to that, it provides support for backing up mobile devices. The disadvantage of doing so much backing up is that it consumes part of the system’s resources and may even make the start-up process take longer.
Protection against ransomware is included in the price of an annual subscription. You will need to upgrade to the Advanced plan in order to make use of cloud backups. A Premium package includes both electronic signatures and 5 terabytes of storage space.
EaseUS ToDo
EaseUS Todo Backup provides cloud backup options or online backup in addition to backing up individual files and/or entire folders to and from a place on a local drive or network folder. It can also back up data to and from a location on a local drive or network folder. The application may back up not just specific, user-defined stuff but also a full disk or entire system, partition, or system drive in addition to user-defined information.
It provides applications for the Mac platform in addition to Windows operating system.
Since backups are inaccessible using File Explorer, you will need to utilize EaseUS Todo Backup in order to examine the contents of your backups. To be more specific, you can open the specific files by simply double-clicking on the backup file to bring up the program’s interface, which is very similar to that of File Explorer and is just as simple to operate.
However, in order to open the backup, you must first have the program installed on your computer. A timeline of backups is displayed, making it simple to select a particular point in time at which to begin the process of restoring files.
You have the option to restore data or individual files as well as entire folders to either their original place or a location of your choosing.
Paragon Backup & Recovery
Paragon Backup Recovery helps to simplify the process of backing up complicated data. The Create Backup Job wizard is one of its backup tools that will give assistance as to what will be backed up and where the data will be kept when the data backup has been completed.
This program is capable of quickly creating sophisticated routines, including automatic backup, and covers all the typical backup operations that are performed. The WinPE recovery DVD is a noteworthy feature, which comes to the rescue in the worst-case situation when your computer would not even boot.
Users may rescue files, repair boot difficulties, and even do a restore with the help of a bootable USB stick to get their computers up and running again in a matter of minutes.
NovaBackup
The process of creating a duplicate of the hard drive on your computer and saving it to local media is a vital step in the backup process, and NovaBackup is a reliable backup solution that can be purchased through a subscription.
This will be enough for casual users, but it is lacking when it comes to ease of use, support for operating systems other than Windows and Linux, and the ability to do more complex operations. Nevertheless, it does support cloud storage services and any software enhancements.
The fact that the program only operates locally and does not link to the internet in order to transmit the data to a local media drive makes the software’s security offering the most notable benefit of using NovaBackup PC.
In addition, for further peace of mind, the backup may be encrypted using the 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard.
An annual membership fee for a single personal computer is required from home users in order to receive protection against data loss, ransomware, and hardware failure. There is also a server edition available, which provides HIPAA compliance as well as optional support for virtual machines, SQL, and Microsoft Exchange.
Genie Backup Manager
The Genie Backup Manager claims to secure all of your information without any extra work on your part and can be set up in just three simple steps. The free version is only accessible for Windows XP and above and it is not available for any other platforms.
Developers of Genie Backup Manager offer separate solutions for different scenarios, such as Android backup and cloud backup, this software is primarily intended for local backups that are saved to a media drive. As a result, Genie Backup Manager is not a more comprehensive application.
Notable features include the ability to execute the backup either at maximum speed using Turbo Mode or in Smart Mode, which intelligently adapts itself based on the resources that are currently available on the system. Both of these modes are accessible for use.
The AOMEI Backupper Standard
The AOMEI Backupper Standard provides support for four different kinds of backups: disk backup, partition backup, folder backup, and system backup. You also have the option to clone a complete disk or just a specific partition to another device.
Every sort of data that is backed up is kept in a single file that may be stored on a local disk, an external drive, or even in a shared folder on a network. This file can be saved in any of these three locations.
Users can schedule backups by enabling it, then they have the option to select to perform a backup only once, on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, as well as at continuous intervals throughout the day. There is an option in the advanced settings to choose between a full, incremental, or differential backup.
The restore feature is one that we find really useful. You have the ability to mount an image that has been backed up as a local disk and search through the contents as if you were doing so in File Explorer or Windows Explorer. Even individual folders and files can be copied out individually if desired. You can also restore all of the data with only a few clicks, so you won’t even need to go through any backups.
AOMEI Backupper Standard may be installed on computers running Windows 7 and later.
Cobian Reflector software
Files, drives, and folders can be backed up to and from any of the following destinations using the Cobian Reflector software: a local disk, an FTP server, a network share, an external drive, or a manual location. Any of these locations, or perhaps all of them, can be used in conjunction with the others as the source site as well as the backup location.
You have the option of using a complete, differential, or incremental backup. In addition to that, it has the ability to make use of Volume Shadow Copy and automatically remove empty folders from a backup.
You have the option of doing a straightforward copy without archiving anything, archiving the whole source location into a single file, or setting the application to encrypt or compress a backup before separating it into individual archives for each file. You have the option to customize breaking a backup into smaller portions when you compress it, which is important if you want to utilize the contents on something like a CD.
It is possible to be quite specific when planning a backup. A backup job can be executed by Cobian Reflector one time, when the program starts up, on a daily, weekly, monthly, or annual basis, or on a timer that runs every so many minute.
Starting a program, putting the computer into hibernation, terminating service, and executing a user-defined command are some of the possible choices for initiating tasks before or after the execution of a backup operation. There are many more possibilities.
This software also allows the user to select a backup priority, execute a job under the guise of a different user, send logs of jobs that failed or succeeded to one or more email addresses, and define complex filtering options for including or excluding data from a backup.
Regrettably, the only option for restoring data is to manually access the backup folder, browse through it, and then copy or extract the information.
Cobian Reflector supports all versions of Windows OS. Additionally supported are several iterations of Windows Server.
Freebyte Backup
Freebyte Backup can simultaneously back up numerous folders to any local, external, or network device of your choosing.
Neither compression nor encryption can be performed on a backup using this application. Scheduling isn’t built-in either, but you may get it to function by making a few adjustments to the way the application opens and also by using an external scheduling tool.
It is possible to filter a backup operation in such a way that only files with certain extensions are duplicated, while all other files are ignored. There is also a switch that you can use to turn on incremental backups, in addition to an option that allows you to back up only those files that have been edited after a certain date and time.
It is said that Freebyte Backup would only operate with Windows Vista, Windows XP, and previous versions of Windows; nevertheless, it is also compatible with Windows 10 and Windows 8 without any problems.
Conclusion
Backing up one’s data is a recommended procedure for anybody who uses a computer, but the selection of the most appropriate backup software should be based on the needs of the user.
