Question Backup Software - Looking for recommendation (freeware)

[ThundyUK]

Hi folks, just looking for a little advice.

Can anyone recommend me a freeware backup tool that will backup a specified set of folders or folder on a schedule but retain each backup rather than overwrite?

It only needs to be locally saved. Simply, I want to set a schedule of, say, six hours for a folder which will create a new backup each time of that folder in another location, but I don't want to overwrite the backup each time so I want each version until I manually clear them.

Any thoughts? Would appreciate the help

Thanks
Phil

 

[USAFRet]

Macrium Reflect, hands down, no contest.
The free version is just fine.
https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

Not 100% sure if the Free version does individual folders.
I know the paid version does.

I use it for my whole backup routine.
The free version does Full and Differential images.
The paid version adds Incremental.

Or, keep a set of Full images...however many you want and have drive space for.

Whatever schedule you set.

 

[Grobe]

I've read some reviews, and I believe the feature you're looking for is called versioning.

I run Linux and have set up a rsync command that does this for me, but this feature doesn't exist in Windows - yes there is robocopy, but doesn't have versioning. If you ever consider using Linux, I'll be more than happy to share the command.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Windows has something called Shadow Copy, which stores the differences between changes.

If you're doing this with text files or similarly simple pieces of data, I'd say use a version control tool like Git, using GitHub or Bitbucket if you need a repository hosting service.

 

[Alabalcho]

Windows own "File History" would work quite well for what you need. You can configure it how often to backup, how long to keep etc. I would dedicate a network / external drive for that.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

Look up robocopy. You have to set up the script but you can set it up to run using windows scheduler. For example you could use it to mirror a folder to another system into a Dropbox folder so that Dropbox can sync.

 

[Grobe]

Can anyone recommend me a freeware backup tool that will backup a specified set of folders or folder on a schedule but retain each backup rather than overwrite?

Look up robocopy. You have to set up the script but you can set it up to run using windows scheduler. For example you could use it to mirror a folder to another system into a Dropbox folder so that Dropbox can sync.

robocopy doesn't have the feature that OP ask for.

 

[Ivy Fridde]

Try Xcopy with File History or task scheduler, this should helps and also you can try (paid/free) Freefilesync , Allwaysync , Gs Richcopy360 and Goodsync

 

[MrLitschel]

I use freeFileSync. Works great but documentation is a little weak about versioning.

https://freefilesync.org/manual.php?topic=freefilesync