Hacker
Professional
- Messages
- 1,044
- Reaction score
- 834
- Points
- 113
True, there are no fewer people who love to freeze their ears over the years, and therefore companies specializing in data recovery, for the most part, do not live in poverty. A truly golden age for them came with the beginning of the massive spread of encoder Trojans, when the number of victims whose files were encrypted by malware numbered in the thousands. Now the ransomware epidemics seem to have gradually subsided, but protecting against the loss of valuable data is still important. Unfortunately, any technique can break. And some - also suddenly.
It is also obvious that you need to copy information to external drives that are independent of the main storage device. If you just save the files in the next partition of the hard disk, it is highly likely to cover itself along with the hard drive if it has problems with the hardware or logic. Previously, optical disks were used for these purposes, but they, firstly, are short-lived, secondly, they are limited in volume and the maximum number of write iterations, and thirdly, the speed of access to the optical drive itself is very low, and fourthly, writing drives will soon one can only find it in a museum, fifthly ... And that's enough, perhaps. The reasons already listed are enough to make a responsible statement: optics is the last century, although many companies (and ordinary users) still keep archives of their documents on DVD.
Flash drives, due to their small size and low speed of work with the USB bus, are also not very good for backups. Therefore, the best option is an external hard drive or SSD-drive, cloud storage or a remote FTP server. Another option could be NAS - Network-Attached storage, the so-called network storage. Compared to an external hard drive, it wins in that it does not require direct connection to a computer: NAS is itself a mini-computer, the main task of which is to organize data exchange over the network and write them to a disk or RAID array. NAS firmware is usually based on some kind of heavily trimmed Linux flavors.
The device lives quietly in the local network, playing the role of a network file sharing service, to which you can upload anything, this is convenient - you can contact it at any time, for example, automatically copy files to it on a schedule or during an idle working computer. This is one of the drawbacks of NAS: most of the Trojan encoders are perfectly able to encrypt the contents of network folders attached to Windows, and sometimes vulnerabilities are found in the firmware of the storages themselves, which are used by cybercriminals. For example, in 2014 a Trojan called Trojan.Encoder.737 encrypted files located on network storages manufactured by a well-known company, and demanded $ 350 for their recovery. He penetrated there using a vulnerability in the device's firmware. The developer quickly patched the hole, but those users who did not manage to update in time still suffered from this threat.
Now let's figure out what types of backups are in general in the world. Most often, there are three options:
So, let's imagine that we have a place where we are going to store backups: this is an external drive, NAS or the cloud. But most of all, simple laziness hinders the introduction of backup into everyday practice. Indeed: after all, you need to distract yourself from your favorite toys, remember which files have changed since the last backup was created, upload them to the storage ... A simple solution suggests itself: to automate this process as much as possible with the help of suitable software. And if macOS has, for example, a built-in Time Machine backup application, then the Windows developers did not provide such a convenient tool as part of the OS, and happy users of this platform have to look for third-party products.
In other words, we need to find the right program - ideally free, scheduled, with the ability to store copies on the network or in the cloud, and preferably with as many backup types as possible (all three are best). So what does the market offer us?
Acronis True Image
Probably everyone has heard about Acronis products. The logos of this company flaunt on the Formula-1 race car of the Russian pilot Daniil Kvyat, and there are plenty of Acronis advertisements on the Internet. Actually, the office throughout its history has specialized in the development of software for backup and therefore has achieved certain success in this field. For home users, the company offers Acronis True Image, which is distributed both as a licensed version for one installation, and as a subscription.
The capabilities of the basic version of the application include copying a disk image or selected files to a storage specified by the user, restoring data from a backup, cloning disk partitions and protecting against encryption ransomware (the application monitors processes running in the system and warns the user when trying to encrypt files: a potentially dangerous process will be offered to the user block). Subscription customers also have access to cloud storage on Acronis servers with a capacity of 250 GB (or 1 TB, depending on how much you are willing to fork out).
The program itself in version 2020 boasts an understandable and convenient user interface: you select a local disk and files you want to back up, show where to upload the archive, and as a destination you can select a locally connected device, a remote FTP server, NAS or any cloud, and ... And, actually, that's it. If desired, the backup can be encrypted, and in the "Activity → Options" section, you can set the schedule and scheme for backing up selected objects.
All three possible copy schemes are supported, you can also configure exceptions for objects that do not need to be copied, and specify the frequency of creating a full copy.
Acronis True Image allows you to set the copy mode.
In fact, the advantages of Acronis True Image are limited to ease of use, while the most significant disadvantage of the program is the commercial license. If its validity period has expired, you will no longer be able to restore data from a backup. In addition, if you stop paying for the subscription, copies in the Acronis cloud will also be deleted after a while. Is such a copy storage tool reliable? Everyone is free to give their own answer, and in the meantime we will look for a free alternative to this application.
AOMEI Backupper Standard
This is a completely free program for home use with a simple and intuitive interface, which can be downloaded, for example, from the site. The application allows you to create copies of the entire disk, its individual partitions, only system files or user-specified file objects. The mode of cloning a disk or its logical partition is available. You can select a local, network drive or cloud storage as the location for the archive.
This is what AOMEI Backupper Standard looks like
From the additional options of AOMEI Backupper Standard: the ability to run a user-specified batch script before or after copying, set the compression level of the archive and configure its partitioning into volumes. Backup encryption is available only in the commercial version of the program.
You can configure the creation of scheduled backups: once, daily, or at a specified time interval, and for this it is proposed to use both the standard Windows task scheduler and the built-in application service.
Scheduler in AOMEI Backupper Standard
The program has in its arsenal full and incremental copying, differential mode is connected in the commercial version for money. In addition, AOMEI Backupper Standard lacks support for the Russian language, but the program's interface is so obvious and simple that even an unprepared user can do without it. Unfortunately, the program does not support uploading files to an FTP server.
In general, the basic, free features of AOMEI Backupper Standard are enough to replace the money-hungry Acronis True Image on a home computer or laptop.
Paragon Backup & Recovery
Paragon Software is well known to users all over the world for its wonderful Partition Magic application, designed for flexible management of logical partitions on a hard disk. But this developer also has a free backup program Paragon Backup & Recovery Community Edition.
Paragon Backup & Recovery interface
The program is quite simple to configure and supports the same set of basic functions as its main competitors. You can copy an entire disc, a specified partition, or a user-selected set of files and folders. You can also choose to copy certain types of files on the specified drive: documents, music and video, and for each of these types you can specify the necessary extensions. Copies can be saved in a local or network folder; cloud storage and FTP are not supported in the free version of the application. Russian language is not supported either.
The free version has the ability to perform all three types of backups: full, incremental and differential. You can set up a schedule: start copying daily, weekly, monthly or at system startup. However, there is no encryption of backups in this edition of Paragon Backup & Recovery.
Iperius Backup Free
Free version of the Iperius Backup software package designed to create backups in Microsoft Windows, including Windows 10 and Windows Server. You can download the program from the developer's website.
In the free version of Iperius Backup, the capabilities are curtailed: you can choose to copy individual files and folders on a local or network drive and copy the archive again to a local or network folder. Copying to FTP or cloud is not supported in the free version. The commercial edition of Iperius Backup can also copy an entire disk or partition, data from FTP, Hyper-V virtual machines, Microsoft Exchange data and various DBMS.
The application has a scheduler with which you can configure copying at a specified time - daily, weekly, by days of the week or specific dates. In the settings, you can configure the method of compressing the archive, keeping log files, add or exclude system and hidden files from the backup. You can choose to send an email message when the backup is complete, or to run an arbitrary program or script before or after the backup is created. Archive encryption is not available in the free version, but the program is equipped with a Russian-language interface, which is already quite good.
Frankly, I searched for a long time in the Iperius Backup settings for the options for creating the archive itself - it turned out that they were hidden in the menu of the Add / Create Destination Folder dialog box. It is there that you can choose exactly how we will pack our data - it turns out that the program supports not only full, but also incremental and differential copying. There you can also enable ZIP compression and specify a password for the archive: this option, of course, will not replace full-fledged backup encryption, but still password protection is better than nothing at all.
If you rummage through the settings of Iperius Backup Free, you can find a lot of interesting ...
In general, the conclusion can be made as follows: the capabilities of the application look quite attractive, but everything is spoiled by a rather tricky and confusing interface, half of the buttons in which, when pressed, offer to buy the full version of the program. But if you take the time to understand its free features, they will be enough to cover most of the basic needs.
EaseUS All Backup Free
This is another free program from the EaseUS company, you can download the application from its website. The free redistributable version also has a number of limitations: it does not support individual copying of Outlook e-mail archives and the creation of an event-based schedule - the launch can be configured only by time. Russian language support is absent in all versions of the product.
And this is EaseUS Todo Backup Free
What, of course, pleased me was the ability to encrypt a backup with a specified password. You can also enable sector-by-sector copying of the selected section - in my opinion, this option is not supported by any other free program.
The backup start is configurable by day, week or month. The created archive can be placed on a local or network drive, NAS or cloud storage (if it is again connected to the computer as a drive). Copying to a remote FTP server is only available in the paid version.
A separate function of the program - System Backup - creates an image of the operating system installed on the computer. Todo Backup Free detects the OS type itself and allows you to save it for quick deployment. You can also configure copying only individual files from specified drives. Unfortunately, the choice of file types by mask or extension is not available to free users.
Selectively copy files to EaseUS Todo Backup Free
Among other things, in this version of the product, the function of cloning a disk or logical partition is available in the form of a step-by-step wizard, and in the additional settings of Todo Backup Free you can find tools for checking a previously created disk image, as well as for creating a bootable USB flash drive or CD with WinPE or Linux. Unfortunately, I did not find the ability to create an incremental and differential copy in the program settings - it seems that Todo Backup Free can only work with a full one. And the last thing: upon a cursory acquaintance with this application, I got the impression that, in comparison with competitors, it clearly slows down. On a powerful computer, this may not be very noticeable, but on a netbook with limited hardware resources, Todo Backup Free can completely hang the system. Be careful.
Conclusions
Now let's summarize the information on all the considered applications in the table.
If you do not take into account the commercial Acronis True Image, of the free products, the Russian-language Iperius Backup Free and AOMEI Backupper Standard seem to be the most interesting in terms of the range of offered functions. At the same time, the second has a simpler and more intuitive interface, but does not know how to encrypt or password protect backups. If you need encryption, but all you need to do is simply copy files without the possibility of creating incremental or differential copies, you can use the free EaseUS Todo Backup Free software.
It is also obvious that you need to copy information to external drives that are independent of the main storage device. If you just save the files in the next partition of the hard disk, it is highly likely to cover itself along with the hard drive if it has problems with the hardware or logic. Previously, optical disks were used for these purposes, but they, firstly, are short-lived, secondly, they are limited in volume and the maximum number of write iterations, and thirdly, the speed of access to the optical drive itself is very low, and fourthly, writing drives will soon one can only find it in a museum, fifthly ... And that's enough, perhaps. The reasons already listed are enough to make a responsible statement: optics is the last century, although many companies (and ordinary users) still keep archives of their documents on DVD.
Flash drives, due to their small size and low speed of work with the USB bus, are also not very good for backups. Therefore, the best option is an external hard drive or SSD-drive, cloud storage or a remote FTP server. Another option could be NAS - Network-Attached storage, the so-called network storage. Compared to an external hard drive, it wins in that it does not require direct connection to a computer: NAS is itself a mini-computer, the main task of which is to organize data exchange over the network and write them to a disk or RAID array. NAS firmware is usually based on some kind of heavily trimmed Linux flavors.
The device lives quietly in the local network, playing the role of a network file sharing service, to which you can upload anything, this is convenient - you can contact it at any time, for example, automatically copy files to it on a schedule or during an idle working computer. This is one of the drawbacks of NAS: most of the Trojan encoders are perfectly able to encrypt the contents of network folders attached to Windows, and sometimes vulnerabilities are found in the firmware of the storages themselves, which are used by cybercriminals. For example, in 2014 a Trojan called Trojan.Encoder.737 encrypted files located on network storages manufactured by a well-known company, and demanded $ 350 for their recovery. He penetrated there using a vulnerability in the device's firmware. The developer quickly patched the hole, but those users who did not manage to update in time still suffered from this threat.
Now let's figure out what types of backups are in general in the world. Most often, there are three options:
- full copy - when a full copy of all selected data is created;
- incremental copying - when only files changed since the moment of any last copying are added to the copy;
- differential - adding to the archive only data that has changed since the last full copy was saved.
So, let's imagine that we have a place where we are going to store backups: this is an external drive, NAS or the cloud. But most of all, simple laziness hinders the introduction of backup into everyday practice. Indeed: after all, you need to distract yourself from your favorite toys, remember which files have changed since the last backup was created, upload them to the storage ... A simple solution suggests itself: to automate this process as much as possible with the help of suitable software. And if macOS has, for example, a built-in Time Machine backup application, then the Windows developers did not provide such a convenient tool as part of the OS, and happy users of this platform have to look for third-party products.
In other words, we need to find the right program - ideally free, scheduled, with the ability to store copies on the network or in the cloud, and preferably with as many backup types as possible (all three are best). So what does the market offer us?
Acronis True Image
Probably everyone has heard about Acronis products. The logos of this company flaunt on the Formula-1 race car of the Russian pilot Daniil Kvyat, and there are plenty of Acronis advertisements on the Internet. Actually, the office throughout its history has specialized in the development of software for backup and therefore has achieved certain success in this field. For home users, the company offers Acronis True Image, which is distributed both as a licensed version for one installation, and as a subscription.
The capabilities of the basic version of the application include copying a disk image or selected files to a storage specified by the user, restoring data from a backup, cloning disk partitions and protecting against encryption ransomware (the application monitors processes running in the system and warns the user when trying to encrypt files: a potentially dangerous process will be offered to the user block). Subscription customers also have access to cloud storage on Acronis servers with a capacity of 250 GB (or 1 TB, depending on how much you are willing to fork out).
The program itself in version 2020 boasts an understandable and convenient user interface: you select a local disk and files you want to back up, show where to upload the archive, and as a destination you can select a locally connected device, a remote FTP server, NAS or any cloud, and ... And, actually, that's it. If desired, the backup can be encrypted, and in the "Activity → Options" section, you can set the schedule and scheme for backing up selected objects.
All three possible copy schemes are supported, you can also configure exceptions for objects that do not need to be copied, and specify the frequency of creating a full copy.
Acronis True Image allows you to set the copy mode.
In fact, the advantages of Acronis True Image are limited to ease of use, while the most significant disadvantage of the program is the commercial license. If its validity period has expired, you will no longer be able to restore data from a backup. In addition, if you stop paying for the subscription, copies in the Acronis cloud will also be deleted after a while. Is such a copy storage tool reliable? Everyone is free to give their own answer, and in the meantime we will look for a free alternative to this application.
AOMEI Backupper Standard
This is a completely free program for home use with a simple and intuitive interface, which can be downloaded, for example, from the site. The application allows you to create copies of the entire disk, its individual partitions, only system files or user-specified file objects. The mode of cloning a disk or its logical partition is available. You can select a local, network drive or cloud storage as the location for the archive.
This is what AOMEI Backupper Standard looks like
From the additional options of AOMEI Backupper Standard: the ability to run a user-specified batch script before or after copying, set the compression level of the archive and configure its partitioning into volumes. Backup encryption is available only in the commercial version of the program.
You can configure the creation of scheduled backups: once, daily, or at a specified time interval, and for this it is proposed to use both the standard Windows task scheduler and the built-in application service.
Scheduler in AOMEI Backupper Standard
The program has in its arsenal full and incremental copying, differential mode is connected in the commercial version for money. In addition, AOMEI Backupper Standard lacks support for the Russian language, but the program's interface is so obvious and simple that even an unprepared user can do without it. Unfortunately, the program does not support uploading files to an FTP server.
In general, the basic, free features of AOMEI Backupper Standard are enough to replace the money-hungry Acronis True Image on a home computer or laptop.
Paragon Backup & Recovery
Paragon Software is well known to users all over the world for its wonderful Partition Magic application, designed for flexible management of logical partitions on a hard disk. But this developer also has a free backup program Paragon Backup & Recovery Community Edition.
Paragon Backup & Recovery interface
The program is quite simple to configure and supports the same set of basic functions as its main competitors. You can copy an entire disc, a specified partition, or a user-selected set of files and folders. You can also choose to copy certain types of files on the specified drive: documents, music and video, and for each of these types you can specify the necessary extensions. Copies can be saved in a local or network folder; cloud storage and FTP are not supported in the free version of the application. Russian language is not supported either.
The free version has the ability to perform all three types of backups: full, incremental and differential. You can set up a schedule: start copying daily, weekly, monthly or at system startup. However, there is no encryption of backups in this edition of Paragon Backup & Recovery.
Iperius Backup Free
Free version of the Iperius Backup software package designed to create backups in Microsoft Windows, including Windows 10 and Windows Server. You can download the program from the developer's website.
In the free version of Iperius Backup, the capabilities are curtailed: you can choose to copy individual files and folders on a local or network drive and copy the archive again to a local or network folder. Copying to FTP or cloud is not supported in the free version. The commercial edition of Iperius Backup can also copy an entire disk or partition, data from FTP, Hyper-V virtual machines, Microsoft Exchange data and various DBMS.
The application has a scheduler with which you can configure copying at a specified time - daily, weekly, by days of the week or specific dates. In the settings, you can configure the method of compressing the archive, keeping log files, add or exclude system and hidden files from the backup. You can choose to send an email message when the backup is complete, or to run an arbitrary program or script before or after the backup is created. Archive encryption is not available in the free version, but the program is equipped with a Russian-language interface, which is already quite good.
Frankly, I searched for a long time in the Iperius Backup settings for the options for creating the archive itself - it turned out that they were hidden in the menu of the Add / Create Destination Folder dialog box. It is there that you can choose exactly how we will pack our data - it turns out that the program supports not only full, but also incremental and differential copying. There you can also enable ZIP compression and specify a password for the archive: this option, of course, will not replace full-fledged backup encryption, but still password protection is better than nothing at all.
If you rummage through the settings of Iperius Backup Free, you can find a lot of interesting ...
In general, the conclusion can be made as follows: the capabilities of the application look quite attractive, but everything is spoiled by a rather tricky and confusing interface, half of the buttons in which, when pressed, offer to buy the full version of the program. But if you take the time to understand its free features, they will be enough to cover most of the basic needs.
EaseUS All Backup Free
This is another free program from the EaseUS company, you can download the application from its website. The free redistributable version also has a number of limitations: it does not support individual copying of Outlook e-mail archives and the creation of an event-based schedule - the launch can be configured only by time. Russian language support is absent in all versions of the product.
And this is EaseUS Todo Backup Free
What, of course, pleased me was the ability to encrypt a backup with a specified password. You can also enable sector-by-sector copying of the selected section - in my opinion, this option is not supported by any other free program.
The backup start is configurable by day, week or month. The created archive can be placed on a local or network drive, NAS or cloud storage (if it is again connected to the computer as a drive). Copying to a remote FTP server is only available in the paid version.
A separate function of the program - System Backup - creates an image of the operating system installed on the computer. Todo Backup Free detects the OS type itself and allows you to save it for quick deployment. You can also configure copying only individual files from specified drives. Unfortunately, the choice of file types by mask or extension is not available to free users.
Selectively copy files to EaseUS Todo Backup Free
Among other things, in this version of the product, the function of cloning a disk or logical partition is available in the form of a step-by-step wizard, and in the additional settings of Todo Backup Free you can find tools for checking a previously created disk image, as well as for creating a bootable USB flash drive or CD with WinPE or Linux. Unfortunately, I did not find the ability to create an incremental and differential copy in the program settings - it seems that Todo Backup Free can only work with a full one. And the last thing: upon a cursory acquaintance with this application, I got the impression that, in comparison with competitors, it clearly slows down. On a powerful computer, this may not be very noticeable, but on a netbook with limited hardware resources, Todo Backup Free can completely hang the system. Be careful.
Conclusions
Now let's summarize the information on all the considered applications in the table.
If you do not take into account the commercial Acronis True Image, of the free products, the Russian-language Iperius Backup Free and AOMEI Backupper Standard seem to be the most interesting in terms of the range of offered functions. At the same time, the second has a simpler and more intuitive interface, but does not know how to encrypt or password protect backups. If you need encryption, but all you need to do is simply copy files without the possibility of creating incremental or differential copies, you can use the free EaseUS Todo Backup Free software.
