Recently, due to various reasons, I’ve had to spend a lot of time dealing with backup software and thought I’d share a few of my impressions and experiences. I will briefly touch upon:

• WD Backup
• WD SmartWare
• Areca Backup
• Duplicati
• Acronis
• Norton Backup
• FBackup

WD Backup

Website: https://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?lang=en

WD Backup is what is now Western Digital’s standard software for backing up to their external hard drives.  I myself used it for several years until it suddenly stopped working and left me high and dry.

Pros

• Good backup scheduling options (automatic hourly, daily, monthly or manually)
• Does allow cloud backups to DropBox

Cons

• Doesn’t recognize other brands of external hard drives
• Cannot recover files between computers except when initially installing the software.  So you need to uninstall/reinstall every time you wish to recover files on another PC.
• Can only create a single backup plan per backup destination

 

WD SmartWare

Website: https://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?lang=en

This is another flavor of WD backup software.  To me this was their more advanced version, yet I was told in a forum that it is obsolete, not to use it and that was now replaced by WD Backup (see above).

Pros

• Good backup scheduling options (automatic hourly, daily, monthly)

Cons

• Doesn’t recognize other brands of external hard drives
• Doesn’t allow for cloud backups
• Doesn’t show backup progress
• Can only create a single backup plan per backup destination

 

Areca Backup

Website: http://www.areca-backup.org/

I used Areca for a long time and setup multiple clients to use it as well.

Pros

• Price (Free no strings attached)
• Can create multiple different backup plans to suit your needs
• Can run multiple simultaneous backup jobs
• Displays the progress of the backup process

Cons

• Doesn’t include smart backup plans to automatically overwrite backup based on size/frequency/…
  • But you can generate bat files to run the backups and use Windows Task Scheduler to run it as you see fit.
• Requires Java, so you have to install it first (and apply updates as they become available)

 

Duplicati

Website: https://www.duplicati.com/

I just started using Duplicati based on the recommendation of a fellow MVP after my failure with WD software and so far I really like it.

Pros

• Price (Free no strings attached)
• Great encryption (AES and more) and compression (multiple format)
• Lots of advanced function if wanted or just leave the defaults which fit most cases
• Can easily recover files on any PC
• Can use any external hard drive, network PC backup destination
• Allows cloud backups to a multitude of cloud drives (Google, Microsoft, DropBox, and many more)
• Allows FTP backups and more
• Good backup scheduling options (automatic minutes, hours, days, months or manual)
• Can create multiple different backup plans to suit your needs
• Displays the progress of the backup process

Cons

• No way to explore existing backups, you need to initiate the recovery process, and then abort it.
• No progress meter when recovering files
• Can’t run multiple backup jobs simultaneously

 

Acronis

Website: https://www.acronis.com/en-us/

This was another highly recommended backup solution by multiple MVPs.  Sadly, my experience was soured when I tried to install it at one of my client’s and we couldn’t get it operational, even with support from Acronis.

One thing to notes about Acronis is that is much more than a simple backup application. It can image entire hard drives so you can recover an entire PC in an hour or 2 rather than days. (but I never got the chance to test this feature, but I’m told that it works very well … when you can get the application to work!).

Norton Backup

Website: http://www.symantec-norton.com/Data_Backup_c3.aspx

I’m not a Norton fan to begin with (Norton is an invasive resource hog!) and sadly this was no different (I used it as part of Norton Security which took over the PC in question – I eventually uninstalled the program).

Pros

• Fast
• Good backup scheduling options (hourly, daily, monthly or manually)
• Allows for multiple devices on a single subscription (see Con regarding space/cost though!)

Cons

• Can’t use any local devices
• Cloud backup to their servers only
• Small amount of cloud space allotted (you can always pay to get more)
  • Very expensive cloud space when compared to other available alternatives

FBackup

Website: https://www.fbackup.com/fbackup.html

Pros

• Free
• Easy to setup and use
• Paid version for more advanced enterprise needs (not expensive)
• Can backup to certain cloud sources like GoogleDrive, DropBox

Cons

• Paid version for more advanced enterprise needs (not expensive)
• Doesn’t seem to be any encryption
• Can’t do incremental backups