Question Recommendations for full system drive backup software ?

fnh

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Oct 10, 2012
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Recommendations for full system drive backup software.
Macrium Reflect alternative; free preferred, open source best ?

I plan to buy a Solidigm 1tb nvme (I'm still on pcie 3) to use as my system drive, while relegating the 1tb WD black hdd to a backup disk.

While I have 2 hot-swap drive bays for large data drives with a cold store HDD plan, I haven't implemented a seriously proper system drive backup policy.

I've looked through forums and google search results for, initially, free open source backup options and they're not user-friendly enough for simple, local backup/restore purposes (CLI, community support, restore reliability concerns). For paid apps with free versions, Macrium Reflect have been oft-recommended but the subscription model/end-of-free seems to put off users. Coming close second is AOMEI Backupper with at least a one time license for paid, with a free version. Since my desktop is currently inoperable due to a PSU RMA, it's a bit hard to try the software so I'm asking here.

Features I'd like:
  • Full drive backup (not just OS)
  • Incremental (versioning granularity for specific folder/file would be a plus)
  • GUI

For those recommending sync-with versioning software, I'm considering that for my data drives rather than the usual manual copy that I do now (they really don't change much).
 
Not saying anything about the features you mentioned, but AOMEI Backupper Pro seems to be periodically available for free on MalwareTips forum. Search for "Aomei Backupper Pro 1yr for free".