Backing up my computer

[Jett Wallace]

Hi,
I would like to know the best way to completely back up my PC to another computer. How I would like it to work is lets say one of my drives fails I would like to be able to copy it on another drive and get back to work. (no I don't want to deal with raid). Currently I have my rig and another computer with and a 4th gen i3, 8gb ram and a 2 tb drive with a 128 boot ssd. Any help I am very grateful for.

 

[utroz]

You could make a system image with Macrium Reflect Free and then store it on your other computers hard drive. http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

 

[Jett Wallace]

What I am talking about is nightly backups, something that is automated

 

[MakingTrevenue]

You could make a system image with Macrium Reflect Free and then store it on your other computers hard drive. http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

This is a great program to use. By storing the image (or images over time) on the other PC, if the hard drive fails, you'll be able to purchase a new hard drive, restore the most recent image to the new drive, install it into the computer, and it should be exactly as it was before with very little work. If you're looking for more features or would like to explore other options, Acronis is another great program.
http://www.acronis.com/en-us/personal/computer-backup/

 

[MakingTrevenue]

What I am talking about is nightly backups, something that is automated

In that case, you could still use either Acronis or Macrium Reflect. Macrium is free and probably easier to use, and there are options to schedule backups nightly, weekly, biweekly, etc. Go ahead and download and install it and look around to see if it fits your needs.

 

[utroz]

What I am talking about is nightly backups, something that is automated

I believe it does support that.

 

[dotaloc]

Technically, you could do a two part -- macrium reflect to capture a one time system and installed programs image (and data, too), then a nightly using xcopy or robocopy (or unison or rsync) which would capture data which changes (User Folders). Of course, the image would have to be updated occasionally.

If macrium does incremental backups, though, it'd be less work.

*checks*

I have macrium reflect free and it offers differential backups via a template, so that should be your first try, I'd think.