Windows Backup Software Alternatives to Acronis?

[Lord Blackadder]

I could use some help choosing backup software....I am still looking for a worthy Windows alternative to my beloved Carbon Copy Cloner on Mac OS. I currently have Acronis Cyber Protect Home office and it isn't getting the job done. My next alternative was going to be Macrium Reflect - any other suggestions or comments?

Background:

I have used CCC for many years for creating incremental backups of my work data. Recently I have had to migrate some work to Windows, and I have started using Acronis Cyber Protect Home office to create incremental backups...and I hate Acronis. CCC will clone over 800GB of data in under two hours. Acronis takes 8+hrs on the same drive. Even incremental backup sessions take 5-10x longer than CCC. Individual file recovery requires using the software to dig out files and I have struggled with some missing data. I have spent months now, fiddling with settings, but don't think I will ever be happy with Acronis.

I am going to ditch Acronis in favor of something else that works better for me on Windows. I need backup software that can do an incremental backup on a 1-2TB data drive with occasional full backups, and a simple individual file recovery capability. I don't need or want the backups to be encrypted or compressed. I don't need cloud backup or integrated malware protection. I just want the backups to run fast and reliably and permit simple and easy individual files recovery as well as rapid full restore.

 

[Cape Dave]

I am using my new iDrive account to do local backups. Does backups and imaging. It also does online backups. Has single file restore. I am quite pleasantly surprised.

 

[Thysanoptera]

Damn, CCC copies my disk (it doesn't do an actual image on M1 macs anymore) at like 30MB/s to a locally attached RAID array, AFPS formatted. Acronis or Reflect on Windows were maxing out the disks at 300 MB/s. It took like a week to make initial backup of my 8TB Macbook, completely opposite experience from you.

I stopped using Acronis after I had to use it to recover and one of the incrementals was corrupted and that somehow made the whole backup unusable. I've been using Reflect thereafter, it was definitely much more customizable than childish looking Acronis - never had to use it for recovery though. I use now Free File Sync, has both Windows and MacOS versions - and just make a mirror of the files on disk. No versioning obviously, thats like rsync with fancy user interface and cache but works for me. Stuff that I can't absolutely live without is on iCould and OneDrive.

 

[keeper]

Macrium Reflect - Does both files & image with recovery , also will generate a vbs script, I have a few flightsim folders that I want to backup at the same time so I just automatically created the code then merged it so I can perform all backups with a single script.
It can look quite technical but I find it covers more bases than iDrive.

 

[sgtaylor5]

AOMEI Backupper Professional is my choice. Pro tip: use the separate AOMEI PE Builder utility to make the flash disk; works in MBR and UEFI boot. I use it all the time at work, especially when background processes get in the way of a clone.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Sounds like Macrium could be the answer, or at least the candidate…but I’ll have to look into AOMEI vacuoles too.

I have had a little better luck with Acronis with the compression turned off (I’d rather buy a bigger backup drive than mess around with compression.) but it is still clunky.

 

[sgtaylor5]

Whatever backup software you use, make sure that it verifies your backups so that when you restore your backups, it actually will accept them.

I’ve had bad luck with the Acronis in the past not liking the verified backup I made. Had to rebuild from scratch. AOMEI may have problems verifying, EDIT: [but if AOMEI verifies the backup, it will restore.]

 

[ozaz]

A long time ago I used something called OopsBackup, which I quite liked and was similar to Time Machine. Unfortunately it was discontinued some years ago. More recently I've been using Macrium Reflect. Started using it because I found it to be faster than the other options I tried a few years ago (can't remember which options I tried but it would have included Acronis). Haven't yet had to do any file/system recovery with it though, other than the initial tests I did when trying it out.

It does have incremental backup, but only on the paid version (free version only has full and differential). I have no problem paying for it but they have a per computer (instead of per user) licencing model, which I dislike. So if you want to use the paid version on multiple computers that you own, you'll need multiple licenses. For this reason, I'm quite keen to find something else.

 

[370zulu]

Same issue for me. CCC user looking for reliable backups for Windows 11 laptops. I use rsync on Linux and am solid there. But, Windows 11 is an exposure at the moment.

 

[RokinAmerica]

I use Macrium on my Windows PCs.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

It seems like Macrium is one of best best alternatives.

I am still struggling with Acronis. I tweaked various settings and I am still running into issues - my incremental backups go for a week and then stop working. I need to spend time digging into the log files but it’s one headache after another.