[SOLVED] Best free image backup software?

[QwerkyPengwen]

So I know about the good ones like Macrium and Acronis, but I am looking into something that'll get the job done for free.

I know of some older software like Paragon, but want to see what's up with 2019.

I simply want to create a full image backup of my SSD which is 250GB and only has about 90GB worth of data on it so that in the event that something goes sideways, I can restore to how it once was keeping all my programs, settings, registry, etc. intact.

If anyone has any recommendations of free software that can help me cut through the clutter of supposedly good to use software I find in lists on different articles on the web that would be great.

I don't need any fancy features, and I don't need to have it run on schedules.

just a plain and simple straight image backup of my SSD in it's current state is all I'm looking for.

And I would use the built in Windows 7 backup image utility in Windows 10, except I've already tried that and it doesn't want to work properly.

So I am looking for some 3rd party software to do this for me instead that I can then take the backup file and upload it to the cloud.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Acronis is well worth the money. I don't use anything else, and I've tried just about all of them. Either Macrium or Acronis are your best bets. There's a reason these are still around while most other options are either too limited to be that useful or have fallen by the wayside. IMO anyway. I think it's well worth the 50 dollar one time purchase price for a lifetime of "I don't have to ever worry about this again".

I'm using my 2016 version of it, and it still does everything you could want a backup utility to do and works flawlessly. I see no need to buy the newer versions, for me, because it has lifetime software updates included and still works perfect.

None of the free software I've tried works anywhere near as well, except for Macrium reflect, which lacks some of the capabilities of Acronis.

I can't really think of any free alternatives in the same category as these two.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

Acronis is well worth the money. I don't use anything else, and I've tried just about all of them. Either Macrium or Acronis are your best bets. There's a reason these are still around while most other options are either too limited to be that useful or have fallen by the wayside. IMO anyway. I think it's well worth the 50 dollar one time purchase price for a lifetime of "I don't have to ever worry about this again".

I'm using my 2016 version of it, and it still does everything you could want a backup utility to do and works flawlessly. I see no need to buy the newer versions, for me, because it has lifetime software updates included and still works perfect.

None of the free software I've tried works anywhere near as well, except for Macrium reflect, which lacks some of the capabilities of Acronis.

I can't really think of any free alternatives in the same category as these two.

Wow. Hard to believe that there isn't a single option out there that is free that'll just basically copy the state my drive is in along with all of it's files into a backup file that can be restored from.

And I don't have money to spend on anything but bills and food.

And further more, I find it completely ridiculous that I would have to pay a whopping $50 freaking dollars for software bloated with tons of useless features just to do the most basic and simplest thing ever.

Guess I'll just do things the hard way then with backing up all the program folders and their respective data folders that are in other places like appdata and programdata and then creating a backup file of the registry so that in the event that something goes wrong I can at least manually put things back as close as possible to the way they were.

Thanks anyways.

 

[Darkbreeze]

IMO, aside from the two I mentioned, this is probably an ok free option. I didn't particularly like it because it didn't feel as user friendly or as intuitive, to me, but it certainly worked and is worth trying.

https://www.ubackup.com/free-backup-software.html?ref=en.nav.for-home