Personal Backup Solution

pepiman

Hey guys
I need to find an alternative for WD Anywhere Backup asap

I need software that will do backups and have the following specs:

1) Choose which folder to backup, make exclusions, etc...
2) Be easy to use, in the background and take minimum ressources
3) Could be free, but if not, then cheap (20-30$ a license max)

I need to use it with WIndows XP SP-2 and a WD My Book Office Edition 500GB hard drive

I need it to backup all items in a specific Documents and Settings folder (user folder) and specifically not mess around with Outlook 2003/2007

Thanks

H3X4D3C1M4L

Didn't that MyBook come with backup software? I know the MyBook 1TB edition does....

pepiman

sorry man but my post starts off with the sentence "I need to find an alternative for WD Anywhere Backup asap" ... because the software kind of sucks

I'm looking for an alternative...

Tipstaff

I still find SyncBack to be one of the best programs for this. They have a free version, and paid version called SyncBackSE which is $30. Interestingly enough I've installed this software on 3 different clients machines for use with the older WD 500GB Mybook, and it's worked every time.

pepiman

ahhh TipStaff I know about SyncBack and I've tried it
It works ok except for one thing that pisses the living daylights out of me (and I can't subject our users to this)
Whenever it cannot backup an item that is in use, at the end of the backup cycle it shows an error message and I can't disable those messages!!

Since users will have their outlook open most of the time and their PST/OST will be in use, they will be getting error messages all the time and I just can't let that happen

WD anywhere backup seems like a ressource hog on some machines, but at least when it realises it cannot backup a file in use, it simply quietly logs it without a blatant ERROR right in your face

H3X4D3C1M4L

D'oh! Fingers move faster than brain thinks

If you want something to just copy the contents of the drive and exclude certain folders, I believe XP has a built in backup program that should work exactly like you describe. If you've tried that then maybe look at rsync for Windows (which would be free).