I've been using the standard commercial Acronis TI for many years (started with v.9) and it was rock-solid -- however once I got Win7 64-bit (from XP 32-bit) had to upgrade to TI Home 2011 -- and my guess is that due it's different more slick Flash or Java interface, I kept getting errors and no-gos.

Support was poor and so the next time I got a new hard-drive, I started using the free older TI "Seagate DiscWizard" that came bundled with the Seagate drive. Older interface but rock solid again. On the next hard drive purchase, the newer bundled DiscWizard (download link is below) came out and I'm using that one now -- also rock solid.

In short, no need or desire to pay for another TI upgrade. Naturally this kind of problem I've had with the commercial versions is most likely somehow related to how I have my OS or whatever else set up so totally relative. Upside for me: what I use is free and it works.

DiscWizard (probably Western Digital too).
(Note: if you choose to download and use this, at first there will be some occasional invitations to upgrade to TI commercial, but they are far and few between -- no obnoxious every-time splash screen to use the free version for it is not a trial version, it is a fully functional free one.)

Freefilesync

I love it. I like to have control and know what's going on under the hood.

Thanks Hulk. Freefilesync looks like a great utility that I can make a lot of use out of.

Mike

Reply by: ushere, Date: 7/21/2013 1:54:19 AM
not quite sure about what the op was backing up....

Posted by: chap, Date: 7/20/2013 9:41:48 AM
I'd like a software that does incremental backups, or rather, only changes files in the Backup drive that have changed on the RAID. I don't want to backup 40 GB of RED camera footage every night, only the VEG files or new AE files, etc

Sounds like all the OP needs is something that just does incremental backups. (:

A simple batch file can do this..

Here's a copy of the batch file I just ran today, that also automatically shut down my machine after the update was completed.

xcopy F:"\00-video projects\Halekulahi\*.*" M:"\video project archive\Halekulahi\*.*" /v/e/r/y/h/i/c/d



xcopy F:"\00-video projects\Queen Emma\*.*" M:"\video project archive\Queen Emma\*.*" /v/e/r/y/h/i/c/d



shutdown /s /f 5

"" : Quotations are required if there are spaces in the path or file names.

/s : Shuts down the computer.

/f : Forces running applications to close without warning users.

/t <XXX> Sets the time-out period or delay to XXX seconds before a restart or shutdown. This causes a warning to display on the local console. You can specify 0-600 seconds. If you do not use /t, the time-out period is 30 seconds by default.

5 : Five seconds to shutdown.


Here are different timings of the shutdown command to power off the PC after renders I use. (BTW, Shutdown after renders would be a nice feature to have in Vegas).

shutdown /s /t xxx = Seconds



                  xxx 

                  -----

shutdown /s /f    60   =  1min

shutdown /s /f    300  =  5min

shutdown /s /f    600  = 10min

shutdown /s /f /t 900  = 15min

shutdown /s /f /t 1200 = 20min

shutdown /s /f /t 1800 = 30min

shutdown /s /f /t 2400 = 40min

shutdown /s /f /t 3000 = 50min



shutdown /s /f /t 3600  =  1hr

shutdown /s /f /t 5400  =  1hr 30min

shutdown /s /f /t 7200  =  2hrs

shutdown /s /f /t 10800 =  3hrs

shutdown /s /f /t 14400 =  4hrs

shutdown /s /f /t 18000 =  5hrs

shutdown /s /f /t 21600 =  6hrs

shutdown /s /f /t 25200 =  7hrs

shutdown /s /f /t 28800 =  8hrs

shutdown /s /f /t 32400 =  9hrs

shutdown /s /f /t 36000 = 10hrs



shutdown /a = !!ABORT!!  (Only during timeout period)

Freefilesync looks like a nice utility that can do the same thing and even shuts the PC down afterwards...cool!

But I love old school DOS and to edit a batch file, watch the files scroll across my CMD screen and have it shutdown my PC is a little more fun. (;

been using macrium reflect for image and freefilesync for working files since moving to 10. so far so good ;-) 

+1 macrium reflect.  Been using it for years.  Even bought a licence some years back as I was so pleased with it.

I gave up on backup software years ago after I realized the proprietariness of most of it invariably made it useless for the future. Have been using Microsoft synctoy ever since. It's basically a graphical frontend for xcopy. Can always see what I have, easy restore of any file(s). I have an unattached office to my home so have a second router offsite with external hard drive for backup.

Great information, thank you, I was looking for a simple way to have files mirrored to an external drive for a backup. I wrote the xcopy script and it worked very well. I also downloaded Microsoft synctoy and find it to be very easy. 😊

I use the free Microsoft ROBOCOPY built in command line tool using the MIRROR and associated flags, wrapped in a batch file, so I don't have to remember it each time!  It reads a simple .txt file with a list of directories/folders to mirror to external disk drive(s).  The only change that's ever required is to occasionally add say a new directory to the text file.  I also use it to keep my Laptop and PC in sync for the selected folders, just run the batch file and at the prompt select the 2 respective drives to sync/mirror, obviously one machine is regarded as master.