Automated Backup Software for win 7 and 8

[jallsop]

Hi

 

Working in a BYOD school means i'm often plagued with the "My computer has stopped working, can you get my work off it?" For many of them, since Macs are 95% of the devices, i simply reply "Use your time machine backup." The usual reply is "Whats that?", but thats another point entirely. The thing is, the tools are there, for free.

 

The problem is the 5% who use windows. There is no automated system built in, unless i'm mistaken, to create a backup to a USB HDD. What do people use? Preferably free.

 

Its made more complex as almost all students are non native English speakers, so a multi lingual solution would be preferable.

 

Suggestions?

[SYNACK]

Backup and Restore - Microsoft Windows

[penfold]

Depending on what their doing and an alternative to windows backup how about the use of something like Dropbox/skydrive etc? That way even if their device dies, they can access their work through a web browser?

[deano]

Depending on what their doing and an alternative to windows backup how about the use of something like Dropbox/skydrive etc? That way even if their device dies, they can access their work through a web browser?

 

It's not free but I would recommend CrashPlan

[XiJ]

Is use Cobian backup for free. Can schedule it and it can compress to zip/7z and password protect if required.

 

For cloud, I use Dropbox free but mainly for sync facility and redundancy. I did buy an unlimited subscription for crashplan for a year when you ha a flash sale - $2.60 for the YEAR. Hope they have another next year. Took a while to upload 26gb of data though!

[SteveA]

There is a backup for windows which is located in control 'panel>system and security>backup and restore'. It is free and there are other free software out there but I think some people like to purchase a backup software because it seems more reliable with extra features. Many don't cost much either so I guess some people see it as an investment since their files are important to them.

 

I just did a quick search and found an article which talks about different backup software:

Software Raters » Top 3 Backup Software

[jallsop]

Backup and Restore - Microsoft Windows

 

Whenever i have used this, its been less than successful at restoring, and i've treated it as more MS bloat than anything useful. Is it now better? The scheduling part is fine, but it doesn't make a temporary store, should the drive not be attached, to auto-backup when the drive is attached. Its fine if you're dealing with a bunch of well trained adults, but when you're dealing with a selection of 10-19 years olds, from every corner of the globe, It doesn't function as well as it might.

[Arthur]

The problem is the 5% who use windows. There is no automated system built in, unless i'm mistaken, to create a backup to a USB HDD.

There is: File History in Windows 8. It works surprisingly well. I setup one PC to backup to a little USB flash drive that's permantently attached to the computer.

[jallsop]

There is: File History in Windows 8. It works surprisingly well. I setup one PC to backup to a little USB flash drive that's permantently attached to the computer.

 

I will investigate. Our french versions have unusual names for some things, which are not direct translation. Update for example is Mise a Jour, which is files of the day. !!!!!

[theriver]

It's not free but I would recommend CrashPlan

 

I like Crashplan and run it on several machines (and it's proven it's worth on a couple of occasions too) but I've found it to be a pain with USB devices, not recognising when a device is re-attached (even if it always uses the same drive letter).

[Davit2005]

What about SyncToy - a Microsoft utility. You should be able to have a common GUI that would be similar on both Windows 7 & Windows 8.

 

Of course this means installing the software on the machines but you could just recommend people do this and agree it with SMT maybe as part of a BYOD use and support policy.