Free/ AUD Backup Solution

Question

Okay, so because this forum can be used for personal opinion, I want your opinion. Recently I have been using EaseUS ToDo Backup to perform the following:

Copy Disk1\Filepath\* to Disk2\Filepath\* as a full backup every second night at 08.00pm
Copy Disk1\Filepath\* to Disk2\Filepath\* as a differential backup at 08.30pm
Copy Disk2\* to Disk3\* every Monday and Friday at 08.00pm

Recently I have had an issue with my PC and has prompted me to recover some OS files on the PC. To ensure no data was lost I recovered from a backup. I am not too sure if this is a limitation of the free version, but it appears to "skip compressed files", so therefore it skips everything in the backup.

Thankfully I have not lost any data, so this is of no concern. I have now currently performed another backup and have removed the compression; this appears to have worked fine. (I am in the process of doing a full drive backup). Thankfully I have noticed this now as I can only imagine months down the track I'll need to restore only to have no data!

This tool, even whilst free, has the potential to cover everything I need. However, I'd much prefer to pay $30-100.00AU and have multiple PC's covered to a localised location.

Here is the scenario I am planning on configuring:

Copy PC1\C$\Backup\ \\Network\Path\User1
Copy PC2\C$\Backup\ \\Network\Path\User2
Copy PC3\C$\Backup\ \\Network\Path\User3

Now on these local PC's I want the user to be able to select what they want to backup, and then to also password protect their own items - I respect people's privacy and do not want to be able to access my families files. The requirements of the software are to complete the following:

1. Must be able to have password protection on the files to prevent access;
2. Must be able to configure a time schedule for tasks to complete;
3. Must be able to store [x] amount of backups and verify data;
4. Must be able to backup to a network path as well as local.

Please feel free to list your advise and why you believe it a valid option. I will keep looking into this.

Answer 1

Cobian Backup was the solution I have used to fulfil my needs.

For configuring remote management of the other computers in my house, I can setup a home domain scenario (which also allows for remote deployment of the software). Upon initial install you are greeted with the following:

The installation is very straight forward and is over quite quick. In the process the program also offers you the option to generate a script for deployment. One of the cool things with this software is that it allows you to install, uninstall, stop and start both the main server and volume shadow copy. You can also define who has access to this:

Now as you can see in the tools option I am able to decrypt, decompress, delete, encode and remote manage; a number of key features I require.

Using this tool allows me to remote manage the PC's on the home LAN by installing the application. I have not played around with this feature too much but it appears I can execute remote backup policies from my PC.

To further help me with network backups and other computer backups, I was able to configure E-Mail Notifications via the program to notify me of the completion and failures. You're also able to edit the logging of the program to help monitor backup tasks.

Lastly I was able to configure the compression used for the backups to allow maximum efficiency on the program:

I have performed several full and incremental backups to the network path so far and have not had any issue. The only option I cannot locate is a file validation tool to ensure my data is not corrupted in the process. For this I may perform a simple robocopy of the local backup.